It will help provide distinction between employees and contractual workers
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions is urging the government to provide a clearer definition of the word "employee" in the Employment Relations Act to provide better distinction among these workers and contractors.
This is one of the recommendations in the Tripartite Working Group on Better Protections for Contractors that the NZCTU is calling on the government to enact.
According to NZCTU Secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges, the recommendations in the report would help "hundreds of thousands of working people" who are engaged as contractors.
"Many contractors report working very long weeks with no job security, sometimes for less than the minimum wage with no access to leave entitlements, collective bargaining or kiwisaver contributions," said Ansell-Bridges in a statement. "These people deserves decent work, and the recommendations in this report would help deliver that."
Aside from the revised legislative definition of the word "employee," the following recommendations were also made by the tripartite working group:
- To use the nine design principles the tripartite has agreed to as basis for constructing more detailed, objective, and prescriptive legislative requirements for worker classification.
- To note that the group's view that further policy work and consultation should be prioritised as a next step, to understand the impacts, manage the risk of unintended consequences, and consider how business models could transition away from unlawful classification practices in a way that is fair
- To develop a comprehensive package of guidance and support services that will support better classification practices by firms in the first stance, reducing reliance on the dispute resolution system
- To allow judicial determinations on employment status to cover other workers performing similar work for the same hiring entity
- To explore options that would allow for regulators to intervene without relying on an individual complainant wanting to pursue the matter.
- To align the definition of "employee" across employment and tax legislation to allow for appropriate two-wat information sharing between the Inland Revenue and the employment regulator
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According to the group, the government should also consider looking at other issues related to job insecurity and inadequate regulatory protection, including triangular and casual employment.
"Adopting a stricter approach to the employee/contractor boundary could result in firms placing greater reliance on these other employment models," warned the group, adding that such models have similar effect in shifting cost and risks to workers.
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"The government should complete further work to ensure that these other types of non-standard non-standard work are regulated appropriately," it also said.
The group was composed of the NZCTU, the government, and BusinessNZ. It was chaired by Doug Martin. They had the task of recommending a strong of policies that could improve the application of regulatory protections to working arrangements at the intersection of employment and contracting.