September 11, 2008
Media Release

EPMU welcomes same job, same rights legislation

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union welcomes the introduction to parliament of a new bill designed to strengthen the rights of temporary and casual workers.

The bill will mean unionised temporary workers hired in through a third party agency to work on a unionised site will have access to at least the same pay and conditions that permanent workers gain from their collective agreement.

EPMU national secretary Andrew Little says the move will mean a fairer deal for temporary workers and the permanents they work alongside.

“We’ve seen dozens of cases where employers have used temporary workers from labour hire companies to undermine collective agreements and the rights, wages and health and safety of permanent workers.

“These situations are no good for the temp workers, the permanent workers or Kiwi workers as a whole because the effect of this kind approach is the lowering of wages across the board.

“The use of third party labour hire arrangements to sidestep basic employment laws has been left unchecked until now and we hope that the current bill makes its way into legislation as soon as possible.”

The EPMU’s Work Rights Checklist calls for “the right for workers employed through a labour agency who work alongside workers under a collective agreement to be paid the same rates for the same work.”

This checklist will be used as a measure of all political parties’ work rights policies during the EPMU’s election campaign and was unanimously endorsed by 16,500 union members across 25 rallies in August.

ENDS

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