employment relations

In the last few days there has been a solid push against current employment law from the right. The Herald Wednesday lead with a Tauranga employer feeling aggrieved at a Employment Relations Authority decision against him, alongside a Employers & Manufactures Association (EMA) survey reporting that employment grievances are on the rise. The article gave Nat MP Wayne Mapp a chance to plug his 90-day worker probation bill (currently before Parliament), endorsed by the EMA in it's press release

The figures add solid support for the type of probationary period of employment currently before Parliament.

$2400 is a lot of money to have to shell out, especially considering the sacked worker Daniel Paterson wasn't a very good employee. But, he wasn't fired for anything the Herald implied with the headline

$2400 worker's payout for filthy graffiti.

He was fired for being late. Specifically, he was fired for being late once. Paterson was probably tardy more than that, but his boss Bruce Debenham didn't give Paterson adequate notice that he was close to being dismissed. On Thursday, he admitted that he did things badly in the Herald.

Further whining from the EMA here, claiming Labour's 2004 employment law amendment is unfair because New Zealand has more than one Judge deciding on employment matters. Sorry? That logic wouldn't get far in a murder case. This case involved a Air New Zealand Employee who was given warnings in 2002 and 2003, once for a fracas with another staff member, another time for getting snotty with customers (details of which Air NZ was unable to provide). Then she was given a promotion. Then she was fired 14 months after her last warning (PDF, page 61). The Employment Relations Authority(ERA) decision was appealed to the Employment Court by Air New Zealand The reason the EMA was upset was because presiding Judge Coral Shaw reaffirmed the ERA's assertion that Air New Zealand's actions were

not what a fair and reasonable employer would have done in the circumstances

I don't think it's too much to expect that of employers, and if the opposite - unfair and unreasonable - was to be committed to policy, it'd be laughed down.

There are some truly shocking workers out there, and most of them get moved on quickly by savvy employers. It's not hard to get rid of a truly bad employee, provided you put everything down on paper. Five sheets of paper to print out a customised employment agreement from the Dept of Labour, and another six to warn and fire the employee. Total cost 10 cents, if you're using the posh stuff.

That, and being fair.