Source: Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi (PSA)
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is today supporting a bill that will cut annual leave entitlements for tens of thousands of working New Zealanders as it moves through the Committee of the Whole House in Parliament.
“Christopher Luxon wants to take a holiday: yours,” said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. “It is disgraceful that he is advancing a law that will steal people’s time – their well-deserved holidays and the time they need to recover from sickness.
“It casts his parental leave announcement over the weekend in a very hypocritical light.”
Luxon, along with his National colleagues and ACT and NZ First coalition partners, is progressing the Employment Leave Bill, which will reduce annual and sick leave for anyone whose hours vary from week to week, who is off work because of an injury, or who works shorter shifts on public holidays.
The bill, which would replace the Holidays Act, would introduce a system where workers accrue annual and sick leave for “standard” hours they’re required to work under their employment agreement.
Overtime and extra hours would not accrue leave, so anyone regularly working those extra hours would get less leave than they do under the current law, which guarantees at least four weeks annual leave and ten days sick leave a year.
“Workers will be getting less leave for the same amount of work – passing this bill would be deeply unfair, especially in in a cost-of-living crisis,” said Fitzsimons.
Workers would also not accrue leave while getting compensation from ACC, and people working shorter shifts on public holidays will no longer receive a full day in lieu to compensate.
“This heartless law does not recognise the disruption caused to family life and personal time by working on public holidays,” said Fitzsimons.
The PSA represents many of the people who would be worse off, including those working in hospitals, those caring for mental health patients, corrections officers, and care and support workers looking after our most vulnerable.
Last week the PSA also revealed analysis that the bill would cut the pay of over 200,000 New Zealanders. The PSA also gave all MPs the opportunity to pledge to oppose any changes that will leave workers worse off – only Labour, Green, and Te Pāti Māori MPs signed.
“Working people deserve holidays, and they deserve to be paid properly for them. We will be fighting for the repeal of this bill and for a government that respects working people,” said Fitzsimons.
The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi is Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest trade union, representing and supporting more than 95,000 workers across central government, state-owned enterprises, local councils, health boards and community groups.