Posts by Matthew Poole
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One aspect of National's changes that's getting no real coverage, being instead overshadowed by the trial period stuff, is that they're re-balancing the ERA process to make it more neutral. This will include allowing the Authority to decide if a claim is frivolous or vexatious early on, before it gets very far, and to decide whether a procedural lapse by the employer is sufficiently minor to overlook or actually affects the validity of the outcome.
Even acknowledging that the devil is in the details, assuming that the select committee process gets good feedback from the wider community we could well end up with an employment disputes process that negates many of the reasons for bringing in the 90-day trial in the first place: having to see through to completion expensive litigation brought by vengeful employees; the ERA's absolute adherence to form over substance in the process leading to termination, even where the justifications were valid.The opposition should be pointing to this as an admission that the 90-day trial isn't actually necessary, because it addresses many of the current concerns (and I think they're valid ones) that employers have with the ERA process.
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PASers be ribbin'
Surely a contender for a top 10 placing in Word of the Year 2010.
Credit to Danielle, really. I just took her comment and made it closer to the meme she was paraphrasing. Not exactly original thought.
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PASers be ribbin'.
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An email that I got today indicated that the law only applies when changing employers, not jobs
That's correct. And it doesn't apply if you're returning to an employer, either. One clause of the trial-period section restricts its application to employees who have not previously worked for the employer.
Graeme is correct that it's strictly opt-in, but one cannot help but wonder if National won't take the time to make it opt-out.
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All jobs are subject to the Minimum Wage Act; I do not accept that a rise in the minimum wage affects all workers, or even all employers.
IIRC, a few years back when the usual suspects whined about a minimum wage going up, the BNZ's Tony Alexander told them to 'get a life' because the minimum wage at the time only applied to 7% of the total NZ workforce.
However, a rise in the minimum wage will eventually ripple through a lot of the lower- and lower-middle income rates, as those who are paid marginally more than the minimum wage strive to remain that way, and so forth. He's quite likely correct that only 7% of the workforce are paid right on the minimum wage line, but the numbers who're paid to within a dollar of the minimum wage is probably very dramatically higher. If you're paid 50c more than minimum wage, and minimum wage rises by 50c, you're now in a minimum-wage job. And even if you don't get a pay increase to compensate, you're still going to be affected the next time the minimum wage increases.
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I've also heard it described as the employer and the employee having a chance to check each other out. Which is crazy because employees can always resign, even within 90 days.
Employees also cannot just leave with no notice within the 90 days. So it's not "a chance to check each other out" at all. If it were, the right to "opt out" at any point during the trial period would be available to both parties. That it's unbalanced proves fairly conclusively that the policy is about keeping the balance of power with the employer. Just in case those uppity workers get ideas that they might be important.
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Of course a small business can have a disaster, lose a lot of work, and may want to use the three month period employment law to get rid of staff but they should definitely have to justify the dismissal.
You know, there's an employment law situation that's designed for precisely that circumstance. It's called redundancy. It's pretty non-controversial when an employer, through no fault of their own, finds themselves unable to justify the continued employment of some of their staff. And the best bit? You can use it at any point in the employment relationship, not just the first 90 days. Such a radical concept.
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And you implicitly point out, if employers want the best skilled staff, those who insist on probation periods are less likely to find them.
Will many more semi- or un-skilled workers? Probably
And Graeme, labour laws need to be crafted to protect those who have the least power to bargain. That would be who, exactly? Ah, that's right, those "semi- or un-skilled workers" who are the ones in the worst position to try and bargain away a trial period, the ones with the least job security to start with, and the ones most likely to be employed by exploitative employers.
It's not the good burghers of Public Address who need protection from unscrupulous employers, given that the average PASer appears to be intelligent, skilled, eloquent, and generally able to approach an employment relationship from a position of power. Rather, it's the low-intelligence, monosyllabic, strictly-unskilled workers who will likely never be in a position to bargain from strength, that need to be at the forefront of any designer of labour laws. Sadly, it appears that National had exactly these people in mind when designing this law: as the ones who should be afforded the absolute least protection possible.
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On the topic of sources for bike kit, Torpedo7 is definitely the shizzle IME. Quick delivery, good service, and excellent prices. I've got some very good deals from them, including a full set of limb warmers - knee, arm, leg - that came in at about $35 including shipping. As someone who heats up very, very quickly, they're a much better idea than full-length anything since I can roll them down or up while riding, or stop and haul them off and stuff them in a pocket. They often have 10-packs of inner tubes, too, often at 70-80% off ordinary retail. New weekly deals go up at 12:00 each Monday.
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I actually really enjoy the airport ride. Having just last weekend moved from Market Road, and not been on a bike for several months, I don't quite have a new path worked out, but I used to go out to Onehunga, across Old Mangere Bridge, down George Bolt Drive, across to Puhinui Road, and back home via Papatoetoe and Otahuhu. Or in reverse, coming up Seacliff Road and Queenstown Road to get in some serious hill work. The shoulders on the 100km/h sections are very wide, which is one reason that it's a popular cycling route. There's also the smell of AvGas in the precincts of AIAL, if one is so inclined. Plus it's a fast ride, mostly flat, or at least relatively so, and wonderfully smooth in most places. I routinely topped 40km/h on some of the flat parts.
The cycleway out to Te Atatu is also fun. Coming out to it by way of St Lukes, Mt Albert, New Lynn and Kelston in morning rush hour, not quite so much, but traffic has never been something that bothers me.