scholarly journals Collective Employment Contracts and New Working Time Arrangements in New Zealand

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Harbridge ◽  
David Tolich
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Hours Worked ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
The Hours ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Statutory Regulation

The research reported in this paper examines the impact in New Zealand of the liberalisation of the statutory regulation on working time in collective employment contract bargaining. Specifically this research reports working time arrangements that are changed in three areas. First the reduction (or extension) of the working week - thus decreasing (or increasing) the number of hours worked by full time workers. Second, the scheduling of the hours worked each week by full time workers. Here changes to the span of days available (and whether that span includes weekend days) and the span of hours available for ordinary work each day have been identified. Third, the application of overtime payments and the specific overtime rate has been examined.

scholarly journals Plus Ca Chage...: The Employment Contracts Act and Non-standard Employment in New Zealand, 1991-1995

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brosnan ◽  
Pat Walsh
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Reverse Direction ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Labour Market Flexibility ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Full Time Employment ◽  
Substantial Change

The aim of this paper is to discuss and analyse changes in the incidence and distribution of non-standard employment in New Zealand since the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in May 1991. Non-standard employment is defined as employment that is not permanent and full-time. The analysis is based upon data from national surveys, one of 2000 workplaces in May 1991 and another of 5,200 workplaces in May 1995. One of the chief policy objectives of the Employment Contracts Act was to enhance labour market flexibility. Non-standard employment is one indicator of labour market flexibility. Accordingly, the degree of change in non-standard employment is one indicator of the Act's success or lack of it in achieving its policy objectives. The results show that the Act has not been associated with a substantial growth in non-standard employment. The 1995 New Zealand labour force looks a lot like the 1991 labour force. The proportion of permanent full-time employees has hardly changed since 1991, and remains at more than two-thirds of the workforce. The two areas of employment to show substantial change were casual employment, which has declined since 1991 and fixed term employment which has increased. The change in casual employment is in the reverse direction from that expected by both critics and supporters of the Act. The data also show, however, that while employers expect permanent full-time employment to remain predominant, they also expect non-standard employment to rise considerably in the next five years.

scholarly journals Flexibilidad del tiempo de trabajo en España:

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Julián Moral Carcedo ◽  
Fernando García Belenguer-Campos ◽  
Valentín Bote Álvarez-Carrasco
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Spanish Economy ◽  
Hours Worked ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Part Time

In this paper we study how the part time employment and its determinants have evolved after the great recession started in 2008. As a consequence of the deepness of the recession, the Spanish economy has destroyed more than two million full time jobs. At the same time, the number of part-time jobs has slightly risen, but this evolution has not had a significant impact on the distribution of hours worked, which shows the lack of flexibility of our economy to deal with demand shortfalls by redistributing working time.

scholarly journals THE LEGALITY OF THE AUTOMATIC TERMINATION OF CONTRACTS OF EMPLOYMENT

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Term Contract ◽  
Unfair Dismissal ◽  
Contract Of Employment ◽  
The Impact

The Labour Relations Act (66 of 1995) (LRA) protects employees against unfair dismissal. In terms of section 186(1)(a) dismissal means that “an employer terminated a contract of employment with or without notice”. In order to fall within the ambit of this provision and benefit from the protections afforded by the LRA, an employee must prove that an overt act on the part of the employer has resulted in the termination of the employment contract (Ouwehand v Hout Bay Fishing Industries 2004 25 ILJ 731 (LC)). The onus then shifts to the employer to prove that the dismissal is both substantively and procedurally fair, failing which the employee will be entitled to theremedies afforded by section 193 of the LRA. However, not every termination of an employment contract constitutes a dismissal and a number of scenarios exist where an employment contract terminates lawfully by operation of law. The termination of a fixed-term contract by effluxion of time, termination of the contract due to supervening impossibility of performance and the attainment of a contractually agreed or implied retirement age all give rise to the lawful termination of an employment contract. Similarly the statutory “deemed-dismissal” provisions of application to employees in the public sector provide for the automatic termination of employment contracts in circumstances that the employee is absent without authorisation for a designated period of time. The effect of such automatic termination is that the employment contract terminates by operation of law and not by means of an act of the employer, resulting in the dismissal provisions of the LRA being legitimately circumvented. Labour-broking contracts typically include automatic termination clauses that provide for the automatic termination of employment contracts, between labour-brokers and their employees, when the broker’s client no longer requires the services of such employees. Similarly employers have sought to rely upon grounds of supervening impossibility of performance in order to argue that an employment contract has automatically terminated in the instance of absconding and imprisoned employees. This article will be examining the legality of the automatic termination of employment contracts in these contexts and the impact on employees’ rights to protection against unfair dismissal.

scholarly journals Unions and Union Membership in New Zealand 1985-1992

1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Harbridge ◽  
Kevin Hince
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
The Impact

The Employment Contracts Act 1991 (introduced on 15 May, 1991) abandoned dependence upon registered trade unions, a characteristic of New Zealand industrial relations since 1894. The detail of this change, and of other extensive changes implemented by the Employment Contracts Act, are outlined elsewhere (for example, Anderson, 1991; Boxall, 1991; Harbridge, 1993; Hince and Vranken, 1991 and McAndrew, 1992). This note is specifically concerned with the impact of the Act on the number, size and membership of trade unions. Developments from May 1991 to December 1992 are put in a context with patterns of change emerging in the earlier period, 1985 to 1990.

The Limits of Language: ethical aspects of strike action from a New Zealand Perspective

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Bickley
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nursing Organizations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Over the last decade, successive New Zealand governments have instituted social, political and economic changes that have fundamentally challenged nurses’ sense of themselves and their position in society. Major upheavals in the health service have occurred as a result of reforms promoting competition and contestability. This paper deals with the impact of one aspect of the reforms, that of the deregulation of the labour market through the Employment Contracts Act 1991. More specifically, the way in which discussions and decisions regarding the withdrawal of nursing labour are shaped by the language available to those involved are considered. The intersection of ethics and union discourses may exacerbate feelings of ambiguity and confusion in nurses facing strike action. The result can be unnecessary and unproductive division and conflict: among nurses, between employers and employees, between unions, between nurses and the public, and between nursing organizations and the Government. An examination of some of the discourses of strike action may serve as a tool to elucidate the way nurses see themselves and their clients in the context of social change and social action.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Employment Contracts Act on Labour Law: Implications for Unions

1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Grills
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Zealanders

The Employment Contracts Act 1991 (the ECA or the Act) is only one of a number of fundamental changes to the basis upon which New Zealand society has recently been required to operate. These changes have been thrust upon New Zealanders by successive governments. The response of the people to such forced feeding has been to change the very basis of how governments are to be elected and are to operate. The public complaint is not only with the fast pace of unanticipated and undesired change. The complaint is more with the failure of politicians once elected to carry out policy announced in the process of electioneering.

scholarly journals Negotiation and Dictation in Employment Contract Formation in New Zealand

1970 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian McAndrew ◽  
Matt Ballard
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Negotiation Model ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
Adoption Rate ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Contract Formation ◽  
Collective Negotiations ◽  
Very High

Previous research reports had identified and catalogued three separently distinct employer approaches to the development of collective employment contracts under the Employment Contracts Act 1991: dealing directly with the workforce, dealing directly qith employees individually and dealing with employee representatives. This paper shows through further analysis of research data that the first two of these approaches are more properly grouped with the development of individual contracts under a non-negotiation model, in which employers rarely moved significantly from initial contract proposals once presented, and in which the rate of adoption of employee concessions proposed by employers was very high. In contrast is a largely unionised representative collective negotiations model, in which parties exhibited conventional bargaining behaviour, and in which the adoption rate of employer proposed employee concessions was significantly below that of the non-negotiation model. Workforce size and pre-Act union strength are seen to be the primary factors associated with the likelihood of employers being involved in the unionised negotiation model.

scholarly journals Health promotion funding, workforce recruitment and turnover in New Zealand

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lovell ◽  
Richard Egan ◽  
Lindsay Robertson ◽  
Karen Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Public Health Workforce ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Full Time Equivalent ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
New Hires

INTRODUCTION: Almost a decade on from the New Zealand Primary Health Care Strategy and amidst concerns about funding of health promotion, we undertook a nationwide survey of health promotion providers. AIM: To identify trends in recruitment and turnover in New Zealand's health promotion workforce. METHODS: Surveys were sent to 160 organisations identified as having a health focus and employing one or more health promoter. Respondents, primarily health promotion managers, were asked to report budget, retention and hiring data for 1 July 2009 through 1 July 2010. RESULTS: Responses were received from 53% of organisations. Among respondents, government funding for health promotion declined by 6.3% in the year ended July 2010 and health promoter positions decreased by 7.5% (equalling 36.6 full-time equivalent positions). Among staff who left their roles, 79% also left the field of health promotion. Forty-two organisations (52%) reported employing health promoters on time-limited contracts of three years or less; this employment arrangement was particularly common in public health units (80%) and primary health organisations (57%). Among new hires, 46% (n=55) were identified as Maori. DISCUSSION: Low retention of health promoters may reflect the common use of limited-term employment contracts, which allow employers to alter staffing levels as funding changes. More than half the surveyed primary health organisations reported using fixed-term employment contracts. This may compromise health promotion understanding, culture and institutional memory in these organisations. New Zealand's commitment to addressing ethnic inequalities in health outcomes was evident in the high proportion of Maori who made up new hires. KEYWORDS: Employment; health policy; health promotion; public health; workforce

Flexibility, Casualization and Externalization in the New Zealand workforce

1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Anderson ◽  
Peter Brosnan ◽  
Pat Walsh
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
New Forms Of Work

The New Zealand Employment Contracts Act was introduced in 1991 to make the labour market more flexible. However, it is far from clear that the New Zealand labour market was inflexible. This paper represents the results of a survey of employers which was conducted when the Employment Contracts Act was conting into effect. The paper finds that the labour market was not inflexible and that employers had been able to successfully casualize and externalize labour under the pre-existirzg legal environment. The study finds further that the employer pursuit of flexibility was not part of an unrelenting drive to achieve new forms of work but was, in general, an opportunistic reaction to recession. Furthermore, employers anticipate that growth in employment, when it comes, will be in perma nent full-time jobs rather than in casual or externalized employment.

scholarly journals The Impact of the ECA on Labour Relations in Hotels and Restaurants

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Ryan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Hospitality Industry ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Wage Determination ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Labour Market Position ◽  
The Impact

Since the passage of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991, there has been much debate in New Zealand about prevailing patterns of labour relations. It has been suggested that distinctions can be drawn between those workplaces where the Act has been used to exploit workers in a disadvantaged labour market position, those where the Act has been used to develop more positive relationships, and those where little change has been experienced. The service sector in general and the hospitality industry in particular, is often used as an example of the first of these three strategies but usually first on the basis of anecdotal evidence. This paper looks more widely at the question of labour relations practices, reporting survey evidence from 1100 workplaces in the "Accommodation Cafes and Restaurants" industrial sector in New Zealand, followed up by interviews with managers in the industry. It focuses on the nature of employment contracts, wage determination, and representation in the industry. It concludes that the prevailing pattern of labour relations should be characterised not as exploitative, but rather as a form of benevolent paternalism. It also concludes that there is little evidence to support the contention that the ECA has resulted in an increased amount of real negotiation in the industry.

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