October 22, 2009 9:33am by David Farrar

Personal Grievances

The Government is reviewing personal grievance claims procedures to make them less onerous on employers.

John Key told the Council of Trade Unions the personal grievance process needed to be more coherent and easier.

“Substance-over-form issues are the area of concern – where someone has genuinely done something that warrants dismissal but because [the employers] haven’t followed the rules absolutely perfectly, they lose. It can be very expensive for small companies.”

Well overdue. Even large companies with scores of lawyers often fail to follow perfect process, and have to pay out money no matter how justified the dismissal is. For small companies, it is far worse, as they do not have access to in house legal advice, and often they just have to carry on with someone who is not up to the job, for fear of having to do a big pay out if they take action.

Quite like the gall of John Key in announcing the changes at the CTU conference, along with this report:

John Key laid down a challenge to teachers yesterday – sacrifice part of a pay rise so school support staff can have one.

Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions’ conference, the Prime Minister was challenged by Frances Guy from the teachers’ and support staff union, the NZ Educational Institute, over the nil pay increase offered to support staff. …

Mr Key said the staff were in a difficult position in their negotiations because of the fiscally restrained environment.

“Maybe one option is you guys ought to go and talk to your fellow unions and say, ‘Let’s have teachers taking less of a pay rise so it can be put toward education support staff’. See if they support you.”

Oh that is wonderful. What a cunning response. Of course Labour is outraged: