Govt ‘attempting to kneecap unions’

Press, 21 October 1983, Page 4

Govt ‘attempting to kneecap unions’

Parliamentary reporter

Wages legislation introduced in Parliament by the Government yesterday was condemned by the Opposition as an attempt to “kneecap” the trade union movement.

Opposition speakers said that the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, was trying to disguise the effects of the Wages Protection Bill. Mr Bolger had said that the bill updated and clarified provisions of the Wages Protection Act, 1964, without altering its underlying principles. The one big change was new provisions to allow an employer to recover, by subsequent wage deductions, certain overpayments for

work not done by an employee. But the Oppositon said the bill was linked with the Industrial Law Reform Bill, and was part of the Government’s campaign against trade unions.

The Opposition forced a division on the bill’s introduction, which was narrowly lost, 37-38. The bill was introduced and referred to the Labour and Education Select Committee. Clause 16 of the bill would mean that no provision in any award or agreement would itself be sufficient authority for an employer to make deductions from wages on behalf of unions.

Mr G. W. R. Palmer (Lab., Christchurch Central)

said the clause was the same as a provision of the Industrial Law Reform Bill at present before Parliament. It was “a means of kneecapping the trade union movement by ensuring that provisions freely negotiated in awards to allow them to have deductions made from their members’ wages . . . will no longer be effective,” he said.

The clause was a poorly disguised attack on what happened now under a multitude of awards and agreements.

“This provision will only serve to make trade union officials spend an enormous amount of time and effort getting their members to sign special authorities,” he said.

Mr Bolger said the clause did arise from the Industrial Law Reform Bill, but it was designed to ensure that workers had control over their own wages. “What the bill says in Clause 16 is that no-one can determine a worker’s spending pattern but that worker,” he said.

The bill provides that an employer may recover an overpayment in one pay period by making a deduction in a subsequent pay period. This can only be done at present with the worker’s consent, or by civil action in the District Court.

Recovery is restricted to overpayments resulting from a worker’s being absent without authority, tak-

ing strike action, being locked out, and being suspended.

It is also restricted to when it was not reasonably practicable for an employer to avoid making the overpayment. “I am advised that overpayments have become more common in the circumstances which this clause seeks to cover,” said Mr Bolger. “Two High Court cases have highlighted this.” Mr F. D. O’Flynn (Lab., Island Bay) said the clause was objectionable. “It allows the employer to give judgment in his own favour,” he said. “If you look at the reasons for the deductions, some of them are about possible disputed matters.” These included whether a worker was absent without authority, and who was at fault in strikes and lockouts.

“Clause 11 requires the worker to sue to get back an unauthorised deduction, and when he does he has to prove that it was an unauthorised deduction.

“The employer is to be allowed to make deductions willy-nilly, on his own sayso, without any surveillance by a court,” Mr O’Flynn said.

Mr Bolger defended the clause, saying it simply provided for an employer not to pay a worker for work that he or she did not do.

“The attitude of the Labour Party is that people who do not work should get paid,” he said.