Media Release

24 July 2000

Union Movement Wants New Zealanders
To Act Like Sheep

“With the passing of the Employment Relations Bill the Government is giving the union movement a monopoly over collective agreements. This is totally unnecessary and unfair,” said New Zealand First Industrial Spokesperson, Mr Peter Brown MP.

“There are thousands of New Zealanders in the workforce who are thoroughly capable of grouping together and negotiating their own collective agreements. If they have difficulty of a technical nature then they could always hire a bargaining agent for that expressed purpose without the need to form or join a union at all. Others might well want to join or form a union, equally so they should have that choice.

“However, with the likely emergence of ‘no frills unions’ and the established union officials criticising such, we have a situation where unions are saying they know better than the average kiwi. To make matters worse the Government is cementing in this ‘union knows best ’ philosophy.

“Frankly New Zealanders are not fools, indeed by and large they are very sensible people, with a high degree of industrial ‘know how’. It should be up to them whether they choose to be in a union or not to obtain a collective agreement, rather than having such an arrangement thrust upon them. I stress New Zealand First is not anti-union but we are opposed to unions having monopoly rights over collective agreements,” concluded Peter Brown.

ENDS

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