Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER
The Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has announced plans to reintroduce pay deductions for partial strikes.
A partial strike is where the employee is still doing some form of their work. Employers have been banned from reducing the worker's pay since the previous Labour-led government removed that power in 2018.
ACT's van Velden said she recognised the entitlement of employees to strike, but the disruption caused "should not continue without consequence".
"Restoring employers' ability to make pay deductions for partial strikes could help incentivise both parties to return to the bargaining table and reach agreement sooner, while also minimising community impacts."
Her proposed changes would mean an employee's pay could be reduced by a proportionate amount "calculated in accordance with a specified method that is based on identifying the work that the employee will not be performing due to the strike".
Alternatively, the employer could deduct 10 percent of the employee's wages.
Either option would need to be communicated to striking workers ahead of the deduction being made, but they would not be required to communicate the amount.
Unions would need to advise an employer of a disagreement over the amount "as soon as practicable" after learning how that was calculated, and could apply to the Employment Relations Authority to make a ruling.
Van Velden said recent examples of partial strikes causing disruption included hospital-based MRI technicians limiting the number of scans per day in August, leading to cancer treatment delays and larger waiting lists; teacher strikes disrupting student learning last year; non-uniformed Defence personnel working to rule and taking coordinated breaks, or refusing to work at height or off-site; and train drivers in Wellington working to rule in September.
"Often, it is the public who lose out or are caught in the middle when these partial strikes occur," she said.
"Intentionally causing disruption to customers or to the employer's output is not only currently a permitted collective bargaining tactic, but employers' options to respond are limited."
In a statement, the Greens' Workplace Relations spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said the move was "dire, draconian, and outright disgraceful".
"The ability to strike, organise and collectively bargain is a democratic right. These are critical tools that have empowered workers to contest and challenge unfair working conditions in the uneven playing field between them and their bosses," he said.
"Workers should be able to use their collective power to fight for better pay and conditions. What the government has proposed would make it easier for bosses to dock the pay of staff who challenge the working conditions they are subjected to."
He said the government's proposal would make it easier for bosses to dock the pay of workers who challenged their working conditions, undermine the ability to strike, and was an attempt to "frighten the workers into accepting the miserly offers that are coming".
"If the government wants to see fewer strikes it could just pay our nurses, teachers and doctors what they deserve instead of dishing out billions of dollars in tax cuts to wealthy landlords. This is another classic example of the government rolling out the red carpet for big business at the expense of everyone else."
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