International Centre for Trade Union Rights

Act of opportunismAuthor(s): Ross WilsonSource: International Union Rights, Vol. 1, No. 5, The right to organise (Third Quarter 1993),pp. 13-14Published by: International Centre for Trade Union RightsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41936972 .

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NEW ZEALAND □ EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS ACT

Act of opportunism

MUCH two Employment

and

OF

a

the

half

focus Contracts years

and

of

comment

its Act

existence during

on

has the the

Employment Contracts Act during the two and a half years of its existence has

been on its industrial relations and union rights impact.

The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has lodged a complaint with the International Labour Organisation Freedom of Association Committee alleging that the Act breaches both Convention 87 on the right to organise and the Convention 98 on collective bargaining. A decision from the Committee was expected during November 1993.

During the General Election Campaign, the National Government held up the Act as the centrepiece of its wider economic strategy. There are three distinctive features of the ECA that re- flect and reinforce a broader style of economic management.

Authority and profitability The first is to assert the authority of manage-

ment over the rights of workers and primacy of profitability over security of employment. Forget the glib public relations about freedom of choice and the ability of workers and employers to make agreements to suit each other and the rights of workers to stick with existing employ- ment conditions unless they agree to new ones.

The Act in operation has confirmed everything the Council of Trade Unions said when it was a Bill. Legal pro- tections for workers are all but absent and those that exist are meaningless. Court rulings have confirmed that em- ployers can: □ refuse work to those who do not accept new contracts □ replace them with other who will □ dismiss workers and replace them with cheaper labour to improve the viability of the enterprise □ unilaterally change pay rates provided the for- malities of lock-out procedure have been fol- lowed.

Deunionisation The second feature is the deunionisation of

the workforce. A wide range of measures have been introduced to make it as difficult, and as expensive, and as cumbersome as possible to maintain effective organisation. This includes □ the need to obtain individualised authority for each separate aspect of representation (negotia- tion, administration and enforcement of con- tracts); □ the need to have separate, annual, pre-negotiat- ing ratification meetings.

□ the lack of access to workplaces for recruitment and educational purposes and so on.

When those obstacles have been overcome, there is no obligation on the employer to nego- tiate. Moreover, the employer can put pressure on individuals to negotiate directly even when they have chosen to be represented by a union.

Enterprise negotiation The final key feature is the breaking down of

negotiation to enterprise level. □ it is illegal to strike for multi-employer agree- ments; and □ the authorisation, ratification and negotiation obligations referred to above make it much more difficult to shift the negotiating base beyond the enterprise.

Economic recovery The question is; will enterprise based, deu-

nionised management led revolution rebuild the New Zealand economy? In my view it will not for several reasons:

Most of the ingredients for achieving and maintaining international competitiveness must

be developed at industry rather than enterprise level in- cluding market development, marketing co-ordination, technology and skills devel- opment, redesigning work practice, setting quality stand- ards and introducing quality assurance systems.

It will be extremely diffi- cult to develop an industry strategy if the momentum of policy is to intensify enter- prise based responses and to encourage enterprise specific work practices.

The instability of repre- sentation makes the focus of decision making short-term rather than strategic. The line

of least resistance is to cut costs (eg the removal of penal rates and allowances) rather than in- crease skills levels, quality standards and levels of productivity.

The ECA is essentially a cheap labour measure when the challenge of the modern market place is to upgrades quality, improve reliability of sup- ply and speed up adaptability to changing market and technology opportunities.

Modern management theory is recognising that authoritarian management has severe limita- tions. Part of the success story of German and Japanese product innovation and productivity growth came precisely because a strong role for unions at workplace and industry level chal- lenged the limitations of managerial knowledge and imagination. **

The Employment Contract s Act is

essentially a cheap labour measure . . . . . .The Minister of Labour may brag

about lower levels of strike activity, but it is purely a result of the severity of the

depression.

Ross Wilson

argues that

attacks on

workers' trade

union and

employment

rights

undermine

economic

recovery

Ross Wilson is Vice President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions

THIRD QUARTER 1993 Page 13 INTERNATIONAL UNION RIGHTS

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The ECA is essentially a conflict model of in- dustrial relations. The Minister of Labour may brag about lower levels of strike activity, but it is purely a result of the severity of the depression. When conditions improve there will be a reversal of market influence. Skill short industries will naturally exploit those conditions in a much more militant way. This is not because that is good or bad or desired or desirable. It is simply that there are no other options. There are: □ No legal protections □ No processes □ No structures □ No other routes to a defence of worker interests. All defences need to be industrial and organisa- tional.

The final irony is that an Act that is designed to exploit the leverage a depression gives em- ployers cannot maintain that leverage in good times.

What we are seeing is a bout of short term opportunism. The real ingredients for sustained economic recovery simply are not there. Busi- nesses are working existing capacity harder to take advantage of short term cost advantages (eg manufactured exports to Australia) or are increas- ing the pace of resource extraction when com- modity prices rise (eg logs to Korea). Businesses are not renewing and expanding capacity with new investment. Instead of expanding the range of matters that are being negotiated with unions at industry level, the scope of bargaining is nar- rowing.

The ECA has given employers short term relief from some of the pressures of recession at the expense of their employees. If they accept that as a desirable, permanent feature of the landscape, they will have locked themselves firmly into a Third World mindset. Third World status will not be far behind. □

Trade union voice

stronger after

Labour advance

□ NEW ZEALAND'S Labour Party gained 17 seats in November's general election and is only four short of a majority in the 99 seat parliament a correspondent reports . An eight per cent swing against the right wing ruling National Party left the gov- ernment in the balance until expatriate votes gave them a slender majority.

The left wing Alliance - a coalition of socialist, green and Maori groups led by Jim Anderton, a former Labour leader who opposed monetraist policies pursued by the earlier Labour government won 18 per cent but only two seats. The populist New Zealand First party - led by a dissident former National Party minister also won two seats.

With the National Party in command of the biggest single block of seats but pro- trade union opinion more strongly repre- sented in the electorate and in parliament trade union rights will climb the political agenda in coming months.

ENFORCING LABOUR STANDARDS □ SOLIDARITY ACTION

The GCHQ

Union Ban

25 January

1994 is the

tenth

anniversary of the

infamous ban

on trade

unions at

Britain's

Government

Communication

Headquarters.

Mike

Grindley looks forward

THE Thatcher's continued

BAN, brought

by Conservative

John

in

Major's

without Government current

warning

adminis-

by and Mrs

Thatcher's Conservative Government and continued by John Major's current adminis-

tration, has been widely condemned at home and abroad - in particular by the United Nations ILO.

The 7,000 workers at GCHQ were given a few weeks in 1984 to decide whether to sign their basic Trade Union and civil rights away. Henceforth workers were only to be permitted to join a Staff Association "approved for the time being by the Director of GCHQ". All employees were uniquely barred from protesting to an Industrial Tribunal, and a payment of £1,000 (less tax) "for loss of statutory rights" was provided by the Government to those who conformed. Many workers did so under the threat of the sack, but 130 refused to yield. There was public uproar. The entire trade union and labour movement were outraged, as were believers in democracy throughout Britain. All UK opposition parties remain pledged to repeal the ban.

At stake is the principle of free and independent trade unionism. The Government's case rests solely on the slanderous notion that Trade Union mem- bership is potentially destabilising where "national security" is involved and could lead to "a conflict of loyalties". However, workers at GCHQ (an import- ant defence establishment) had been in unions since 1947, and on the very morning of the day the ban was announced, a management-encouraged union introduction course was given for people starting work.

In 1984 - the year of the ban: □ The UK Parliament's Select Committee of Em- ployment severely criticised it. □ The High Court declared the ban "invalid and illegal" for reasons of Natural Justice, before the Appeal Courts overturned the ruling. Whatever the Government deemed to be a matter of "national security" was not to be inspected in anp y way by the judiciary. □ Members of Parliament of ALL parties, including some Conservatives, opposed the ban. □ Public opinion polls were heavily against the action.

The GCHQ case went to the European Com- mission of Human Rights who said in 1987 that our case was "inadmissible". Unelected and unaccount- able appointees by European governments backed off from discussing the rights and wrongs of the issue.

In late 1988 and early 1989 the last 14 trade unionists still working at GCHQ were sacked, purely for refusing to be forced out of their Union. William Waldegrave, Minister of State at the Foreign Office said, "GCHQ is too important an establishment to allow trade unionists there" +*

INTERNATIONAL UNION RIGHTS THIRD QUARTER 1993 Page 14

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