Regulating Employees And Employers

BusinessNZ supports coming changes to employment law to remove unnecessary regulations on employing new staff.

Currently businesses must sign up new staff to a collective agreement’s terms for their first 30 days in the job, regardless of whether they want to be in a union or not, and only after 30 days can an employee’s choice to join an individual agreement be honoured.

Currently businesses are also required to notify new staff about numerous union membership options that are bringing confusion among new employees who mistakenly think the notification means they have already joined a union.

BusinessNZ Chief Executive Katherine Rich said these two requirements under the Employment Relations Act hinder employees, employers, and productive workplaces.

"Whatever a new employee chooses to negotiate - collective agreement or individual agreement - should be respected immediately, not after 30 days, and there should be no automatic inclusion of a new employee into the terms of a union’s collective agreement without that person’s agreement.

"There should also be sensible limits on the requirements for businesses to notify complex union options to new staff members. These requirements also benefit union membership while imposing unnecessary compliance on productive workplaces."

Mrs Rich said BusinessNZ had advocated strongly for the Government to reduce over-regulation in this area of employment law, and the move would be welcomed by many employers and employees.

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