When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January this year supporting the idea. But since then, there's been nothing. And understandably, the union movement would like the government to keep its promises:
The leader of the Council of Trade Unions is calling on the Government to make progress on fair pay agreements.
CTU president Richard Wagstaff said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern needed to fulfil her election promise to workers and introduce the collective agreements.
The union released a framework on fair pay agreements ahead of the organisation's annual conference, being held today.
"The Labour Party have pledged their commitment to fair pay agreements, but action is needed to turn the concept into reality."
And they're running out of time. It takes between 6 months to a year (depending on submissions and filibustering) for a bill to become law after being introduced to Parliament, and there's an election in a year. If a bill for fair pay isn't introduced by the holidays, then it will be clear that its just not going to happen this term. And that will add another policy to the long list of under-delivery for this government of disappointment, and make it that much harder to encourage its voters to turn out for it.
