That’s Not What It’s For

Yes, unfortunate but hardly surprising. I suspect that this is just the first of many steps backwards that Key plans to make…

A good idea might be a 90-day fire-at-will bill for the public’s employee, the government

That’s hardly backwards, the current “probation perriod” is just some window dressing bullshit that you might as well don’t have it. There’s no point in having a probation period when you can’t actually fire someone at the end of the period. In my view Labour has given way too much power and rights to unions and employees, and this is merely bringing it back to balance some what.

Hi Ivan, thanks for the comment.

The – now previous – probation period allowed an employer to dismiss an employee for reasons of performance. The difference is that the employer had to have a channel of communication open with the employee and the employee had the option of lodging a grievance against the employer for reasons of wrongful dismissal.

If the employer had documented and shown proof that the employee was informed of their performance issues nothing would come of it and the grievance would be dismissed.

The problem is with employers that don’t follow procedure, keep their employees in the dark and fire their employees improperly, they would be closely scruitinised by the government.

This new law doesn’t help that and, in fact, makes it worse. An employer can fire an employee for any reason during the probation period, and as long as they officially cite the reason as “performance problems” the employee will have no recourse to challenge a wrongful dismissal. Of course, a good employer wouldn’t do that – but laws aren’t there to protect us from good employers but bad ones such as these ones.

In a capitalist society such as ours, the balance of power is already tilted in favour of the employer – especially with low-skilled or casual/part time work. Workers depend on the business owners (who own the means of productions) to survive, and laws such as these can seriously threaten the livelihood of such workers with almost no consequences. This and high unemployment (Employment was at an all-time low under Labour) is what drives wages down and increases the gap between rich and poor.

Looking forward to reading your reply.

Hi Chris, I think we’re going to have an interesting time slugging it out in the future as I think I’ve got contrasting views/opinions to that of your’s and Adam’s.

From my understanding, the old probation period will require strenuous amount of displinary actions and procedures before you can actually fire someone. Which means it’s almost impossible to fire someone if you happen to hire someone that did not perform. I believe this is the same as when you become an official employee, which means there’s no difference between the probation period and being officially employed. This will in turn result in employers reluctant to hire new people, skills shortage etc as it becomes more of a gamble. In a way, it’s just a piece of redundant law.

It’s a bit like say raising the drinking age, it does nothing except making it look good and pushing the problem off to someone else. Just like everything else, there are good people and bad people so the bad ones will always find a way to abuse others, so it becomes the issue of how to benefit the majority, which I think the new law will.

I don’t think the balance of power in NZ is tipped towards the employers, in fact I reckon it’s quite a bit on the employee’s side. Look at the amount of strikes and protests in the last few years, some of them are just outright ridiculous.

The government have some influence on the employment rate but not as much as the market/economy itself, so I would never really consider low unemployment rate as a work of the government. It is also obvious why the current unemployment is high, and the current government is not to blame.

If there are less money to go around, then lower wages comes as a no surprise. It’s like the evolution, the fittest survive. If say your home got flooded, then tough, you move on. Or you can sit and moan and be filtered out as how the nature works. People have been sitting too comfortably at their job in this country for too long. There’s no incentive for people to strife for something better. You hear all these people that say they had their job all their life then got made redundant, this is exactly what I’m talking about. If a company went bust and you are out of job, you move on. If someone you know died, life goes on with or without you.

By no means I support the full capitalism, much of capitalism comes down to greed. But some of the spirits of capitalism is needed for people to keep challenging themselves in order to survive.

I thought about starting my own business before, and I still plan to one day. And I do understand why the rich get richer (disregarding the greedy ones), that’s because they put all their effort and life into it and sacrificed a lot to get there. That is there reward because that is the gamble they took. If I took the plunge and given up all my savings and all my current lifestyles to start my own business and failed, I would’ve lost the lot, and that is the risk I took. So quite frankly I do deserve lots of money if my venture do become successful. If I lost my job today, I go look for another one. I still got my savings, I still got all my assets so the risk is a lot less. To start a business, you need investors, and all investors are looking for are returns, big returns rather as the investment are high risk. But that is also the down side where 99% of investors want profit after profit and nothing else, this is where I hate the pure capitalism.

On a slightly side note, I’m sick of the so called nanny state where I’ve been told what I can do and what I can’t do. I find it it’s the typical way NZ do things. Instead of solving the problem, we simply shove it to someone else, have an ignorant solution, or just make it worse.

I’ve been babbling on a bit here…

Damn, look at the time, that’s my free time gone for the evening… Tomorrow will be another day, there’s never enough time.

Hi Chris, I think we’re going to have an interesting time slugging it out in the future as I think I’ve got contrasting views/opinions to that of your’s and Adam’s.

Hope so, it’s no fun when everyone agrees.

From my understanding, the old probation period will require strenuous amount of displinary actions and procedures before you can actually fire someone. Which means it’s almost impossible to fire someone if you happen to hire someone that did not perform. I believe this is the same as when you become an official employee, which means there’s no difference between the probation period and being officially employed. This will in turn result in employers reluctant to hire new people, skills shortage etc as it becomes more of a gamble. In a way, it’s just a piece of redundant law.

Not to put too finer point on it, but your understanding seems to be divined from National Party press releases and not actual experiences. The employers I’ve spoken to have hired and fired people under the old probation period and have encountered little to no problems with it.

I was personally hired with a probationary period. If the new law had been present I would not have agreed to it, however, as a skilled worker, I’m in a good position to negotiate. Unfortunately, low-wage and unskilled workers do not have such a luxury and in many cases it’s a decision between accepting fewer work rights over a period of time or not paying the rent.

Just like everything else, there are good people and bad people so the bad ones will always find a way to abuse others, so it becomes the issue of how to benefit the majority, which I think the new law will.

Leaving employees with no way to contest an unfair dismissal for the first 90-days of their employment in no way benefits the majority, no matter how it’s spun.

I don’t think the balance of power in NZ is tipped towards the employers, in fact I reckon it’s quite a bit on the employee’s side. Look at the amount of strikes and protests in the last few years, some of them are just outright ridiculous.

In a normal employer-employee relationship, the employer wields disproportionate power over the employee. This is capitalism. The government balances this power by enforcing work rights, providing a social wage (benefits and subsidies) and other measures. By weakening those measures, you weaken the employees position – the more the employee depends on the employer to survive.

The government have some influence on the employment rate but not as much as the market/economy itself, so I would never really consider low unemployment rate as a work of the government. It is also obvious why the current unemployment is high, and the current government is not to blame.

That’s true. However, “Business” much prefers unemployment to be high, where workers are competing for jobs and that drives wages, or “Labour costs” down. Workers benifit from low unemployment where businesses are competing for workers, driving effective wages (money + benefits) up.

If there are less money to go around, then lower wages comes as a no surprise. It’s like the evolution, the fittest survive.

This is a common argument, and one I don’t fully understand. Why is growing the pie and altering the division of the pie (where pie = economy) mutually exclusive?

By no means I support the full capitalism, much of capitalism comes down to greed. But some of the spirits of capitalism is needed for people to keep challenging themselves in order to survive.

Just as I don’t support full socialism or communism. The extremes at either side of the spectrum are quite ugly, but that’s no reason to abandon moving towards a more inclusive society where bad employers can’t threaten employees with their livelyhood.

I thought about starting my own business before, and I still plan to one day. And I do understand why the rich get richer (disregarding the greedy ones), that’s because they put all their effort and life into it and sacrificed a lot to get there. That is there reward because that is the gamble they took.

Well, nobody is saying that business owners don’t deserve wealth, but not everybody can run their own business in a capitalist society. The system needs both employers and employees to function.

On a slightly side note, I’m sick of the so called nanny state where I’ve been told what I can do and what I can’t do. I find it it’s the typical way NZ do things. Instead of solving the problem, we simply shove it to someone else, have an ignorant solution, or just make it worse.

I feel like you’re getting yourself worked up over a bunch of catch phrases and cliches. “Nanny state” is little more than attack lines and spin from the right side of the political spectrum.

Hey Chris, sorry for the late reply. Been busy and life is a bit sh*te at the moment.

By the way, what kind of mark up language is it that you use for the comments?

Will post a proper reply soon.