CTU Media Release

24 April 2012

Many Risks In MoBIE

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary said the Government’s confirmation today that it will go ahead with the merger of the Labour Department into a new Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment still poses major risks.

The CTU understands that benefits can come from alignment of departmental functions, but we think if any change is required it makes more sense for the Labour Department to align more closely with the Ministry of Education and Tertiary Education Commission around skills issues, than be pushed into a business focus entirely in MoBIE.

“We should not get hung up on departmental names but the fact is, in one stroke, the Government has removed a department called the ‘Labour’ Department (in existence for 121 years) and the another department called ‘Economic Development’. This has been done to ensure that the emphasis is now on ‘business’ rather than the specific interests of labour or economic development.”

“This is a backward step – and reduces the focus to one entirely on ‘business’.

Peter Conway said “plans to have a sole ‘business facing’ purpose for the Department responsible for safety at work, holidays, parental leave, minimum wages, and for wider workers’ employment conditions and rights poses great risks for the interests of the over two million New Zealanders who are in the workforce.”

“We again ask the question - where will the ‘worker-facing’ roles and functions that the Department currently provides fit in the new structure? Where will the advice and functions that require independence from business come from?”

Announcements today have done little to address these questions.

“The risk that advisors may lose the ability to provide high quality free and frank and independent advice on employment relations issues if their focus is to be single, and ‘business-facing.’ We are fearful that the highly technical and specialised nature of the advice provided by the Department of Labour, as well as the other affected departments, will be lost in this unnecessary merger. Specialist functions carried out by these agencies may be also be lost as this merger ploughs ahead.”

“Tragedies such as Pike River have shown that the Government is already struggling to provide adequate resourcing to the health and safety inspectorate, and to adequately carry out their health and safety functions. Dealing with issues like health and safety through a single business facing focus may marginalise and compromise the focus that should be on workers, as well as employers, in respect of health and safety at work,” said Peter Conway.

ENDS

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