The terrible terrible “Fair Pay” proposals

The majority of the “Fair Pay Agreements” Working Group have proposed a system that is terrific for unions and terrible for New Zealand. It is a de facto return to national awards and compulsory unionism, but even worse than in the 1970s.

Employers will be stripped of their ability to say no. If they don’t agree to union demands, then a Government appointed arbitrator will decide for an entire industry what their pay and conditions will be – binding on every employer from Bluff to Auckland.

The threshold for an industry wide agreement is so low, as to be non-existent. A union only needs the lower of 10% of workers in a sector or 1,000 workers.

So an industry may have 200,000 workers. Just 1,000 can demand an industry wide aware that will bind the other 199,000. It’s not a 10% threshold, or even a 1% threshold.

Now you can bet any industry wide agreement will have a requirement that every worker must pay a fee to the union, regardless of whether or not they are a member. It will be the greatest revenue gain for unions in their history.

And they will repay Labour by donating much more money to the, and running third party campaigns for them.

Business owners up and down New Zealand should be very worried. This proposal will see them forced into national awards against their will, and a small business in Gore will face the same demands as a multi-national in Auckland.