In line or out of line?
Danya Levy at Stuff reports:
Labour says its plans to overhaul employment laws will bring New Zealand in line with other developed countries and claims it is a return to 1970s-style industrial relations are scaremongering.
No scaremongering at all. But let us look at the claims it will bring NZ in line with other developed countries.
Take the 90 day probation period. We are almost the only country in the OECD that didn’t have one. Australia has 90 days, Canada 6 months, UK 12 months and Ireland 12 months. Germany is 6 months. The only OECD country without a legal probationary period is Denmark. So don’t believe the crap that this brings us in line with other countries.
Now take the plan to price more people out of the workforce by making it illegal for an employee to work for less than $15 an hour, even an unskilled 16 year old. Wikipedia has a list of minimum wages by country and what percentage they are of GDP/capita. This allows a comparison. Under Labour’s policy NZ would go from 62% to 72%. Here’s other OECD countries:
- Australia 52%
- Austria 37%
- Belgium 53%
- Canada 44%
- Denmark 66%
- France 53%
- Ireland 49%
- Netherlands 48%
- Switzerland 38%
- UK 66%
- US 33%
So again not bringing us in line with other OECD countries, but in fact increasing the gap between us and other OECD countries.