On Sacrificing Worker Rights On The Altar Of Commerce
In the interests of efficiency, maybe Brooke van Velden should just outsource her Workplace Relations and Safety Ministry to Business NZ and be done with it. Because (obviously) corporate wishes are her command.
Within a short time in the job, van Velden has trashed a decade of pay equity work, given the 90 day fire-at-will power back to employers, reduced worker rights to bargain collectively, and signalled her intention to reduce sick pay entitlements for part-time workers.
Despite New Zealand's horrendous record of workplace deaths, injuries and illness, van Velden plans to reduce Worksafe's enforcement role and revert to the employer-written, voluntary codes of health and safety that New Zealand experimented with in the 1990s, and which directly contributed to the Pike River tragedy.
In the process, she plans to reduce the safety requirements placed on employers and company directors - while at the same time, making workers more responsible for dealing with unsafe conditions in the workplace.
It goes on. As promised, van Velden is also amending current employment law in ways that will make gig economy workers unable to argue in court that their actual working conditions entitle them to the same rights as employees. In the sane legislative package, she will also restrict access to personal grievance processes.
In the light of all this, media reports that 'business leaders are backing [these]changes' will come as a surprise only to people unaware that the Pope is a Catholic.
The certainties of injustice
By virtually privatising her portfolio, van Velden is giving up any pretence of pursuing a fair and equal balance in the workplace, between the rights of employers and the rights of workers.
As Dennis Maga of the Workers First Union says, these law changes (to do with contractor/employee status) are being pushed through Parliament in order to pre-empt the Supreme Court hearing next month of an appeal against a ruling by the Employment Court that four Uber drivers were employees, not contractors.
According to Maga, the government 'has no regard for evidence, no time for judicial process.' Moreover:
'Instead of strengthening our protection against exploitation, Brooke van Velden is laying out the red carpet for employers like Uber to come into New Zealand and take advantage of cheap labour with next to no rights, and no ability to challenge their employment status.'
Shrinking Sick Leave
On the campaign trail back in August 2023, National had promised that it would not reduce the number of sick days employees receive.
Luxon said he wouldn't get rid of the 10 days of sick leave which was increased from five by Labour in 2021. "It is what it is now and it's passed and we won't be changing it now," Luxon told reporters.
What van Velden is working on – with National's support - is a reduction in sick leave entitlements, by shifting to a so called 'pro rata' system whereby an entitlement to sick leave accrues less readily over time. Currently, all workers – full-time, part-time or casual – are entitled to 10 days of sick leave if they have been with their employer continuously for six months, and have worked an average 10 hours a week, and at least one hour in every week, or 40 hours in every month.
van Velden clearly intends to introduce a pro rate system in which sick leave entitlements in future will differ more sharply between full time and part time workers. As more and more work gets casualised, employers who rely on casual labour have an obvious interest in seeing a reduction in worker entitlements.
How many workers stand to be affected? As of the first quarter of this year, there were 584,000 part time workers in this country and nearly 70% of them – 404,000 in all –were women. As with the coalition government's demolition of pay equity, any shift to a tougher pro rate system for part-time workers will disproportionately affect women.
At this point, much will depend on how van Velden calculates her 'pro-rata' system – will sick leave accrue in proportion to how many hours are worked per week, or how many days of the week are worked? Incredibly, van Velden could not/would not comment to RNZ's Lisa Owen on which measure she has in mind, or even – on principle - which measure would be more fair to the employees affected.
For many workers, the measure chosen could significantly affect how their sick leave accrues. A Owen pointed out, some people – e.g. in the health system – work 40 hours, but this can be compressed into four day shifts. Alternatively, other workers may work several short shifts, spread out over an entire week. So which pro rata measure is it to be - hours, or days per week ? van Velden isn't saying, at least not until Cabinet has signed off, and it has become a fait accompli.
Even more incredibly, the RNZ interview revealed that van Velden is pursuing a 'solution' – ie. reduced access by part-time workers to sick leave - before gathering any evidence that a problem actually exists.
After all, sick leave entitlements are only a cost burden to employers if and when that sick leave gets taken – and, Owen asked, has van Velden got any evidence that the part-time workers in this country are taking disproportionate amounts of sick leave? No, van Velden indicated.
Finally, Owen asked again about the likely impact on women workers given their dual roles in the paid work force, and as the main child carers at home. Many are single parents, or have partners also working shifts in order to make ends meet. So when school kids get sick, and their mothers'sick leave entitlements have been reduced, Own asked, what will happen?
van Velden's reply could hardly have been more utopian:
She dismissed concerns that changing the sick leave entitlements would disproportionately affect women, saying 'if we truly care about gender equality, we shouldn't have this assumption that women are the ones in a relationship taking time off to look after their children when they're sick'.
Yep, when the reality faced by low income women is in conflict with an ideological principle that serves the interests of commerce, you can always rely on the ACT Party to defend the principle, no matter how unjust its outcomes may be.
Parlour music for moderns
Some music critic once likened the effect of listening to a lot of Erin Durant's music to always eating off the fine china i.e. it feels classy, when you feel like doing classy. Durant herself once wryly described her music as 'spare, gospel-tinged and redolent of old parlours.'
The parlour formalities aside...much like Joanna Newsom, Durant's soprano tends to flutter at the top end of her range, but she usually feels more grounded both in her delivery, and in her subject matter. Overall, the same critic concluded, Durant sounds like Nanci Griffith or Sandy Denny singing a Joanna Newsom song. High praise anyway, on all counts.
Durant was born and raised in New Orleans, worked for a decade in New York City, and is now based in Topanga Canyon. The influences of geography aside, the lyrical concerns, bookish conceits and complex structures of these piano-based songs – many of which include a trademark change of rhythm, midstream – are entirely her own.
'Islands 'for instance, is about an escape - to an idealised paradise of 'palms ad driftwood, like Hemingway said' - that gets interrupted by a call from a partner at home who had encouraged her to go and have a good time, but who is now needily on the phone, killing whatever tentative buzz might have been in the offing.
The song shifts between the justifications of starting afresh – 'You must have known/that your pleasure was gone/You let me go/you must have known' - and the responsibilities still being felt, even for a dying relationship. The song ends with the singer at the crossroads, still undecided:
Any New Orleans native who call a song 'Rising Sun' and who begins each chorus with the line ' There is a house in New Orleans' is aware of the weight of tradition. A word here for producer Kyp Malone (from the group TV On The Radio) who has broadened the palette of Durant's songs with added instrumentation, but couched it in a deft, dry production that never overwhelms the main event.
I love the humour and directness in the opening lines of this track:
Hello wind, haven't seen you in years
Have you been out on the plain with the others?
I've been here, learning some rituals
Like how to truly love another...
To be alone feels like a life of crime
But to fear the unknown is an uglier rhyme...
Finally...here's a typically intricate single from Durant's new album, Firetrail :
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