Federated Farmers employment spokesman Chris Lewis said allowing businesses employing less than 20 staff to retain the trial would give farmers renewed confidence to employ staff, given the main concern for dairy farmers was a lack of available, motivated workers.
“Many employ few staff, but because of the small size of the business, they simply can’t afford the situation or inconvenience when new staff aren’t suited for the job or can’t fit in,” he said.
Retaining the 90-day trial would give farmers confidence to employ staff.
“Farmers need the confidence to take a chance on a potential employee who may have no demonstrated experience, or who may have had previous social or addiction problems,” Lewis said.
Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Iain Lees-Galloway, said the new legislation would also change rules on unfair dismissal, and meal and rest breaks.
It proposes that reinstatement should be the primary remedy for an unfair dismissal, which Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope said would place the onus on employers and employees to work positively following an employment relations breakdown.
Hope said the current system in which employers and employees mutually agreed when meal and rest breaks were taken would be changed to statutory breaks, although flexibility would be allowed in essential services.
“Business has appreciated the flexibility of the current system,” he said.
“Changing to a more regulated approach isn’t ideal for business agility – for example, in manufacturing operations.”
Other changes strengthened rights for collective bargaining and easier access to union representation.
The National Party questioned why the Government was changing a law that had contributed to the addition of 245,000 new jobs in the past two years.
The Opposition’s workplace relations spokeswomen, Amy Adams, said nearly 80% of NZ workers were in full-time jobs, and wages have been growing at twice the rate of inflation.
“These changes will only damage that track record, so why are they actually needed?
“New Zealanders will rightly suspect they are a random union wish list.
“People will be asking exactly how much influence these unions have in the current government,” she said.
Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff welcomed the changes as ending the erosion of employment rights under the previous government, but he said they didn’t go far enough and he would continue to push for the 90-day trial – or what he called “fire-at-will law” – to be repealed.
