Zealand's Employment Contracts Research Articles

NEW ZEALAND LESSONS FOR AUSTRALIAN WORKPLACE REFORM: A CRITIQUE OF 151 ACADEMICS

The Australian Government's newly‐introduced Work Choices Act represents one of the most far‐reaching changes to Australian workplace legislation since Federation. A major detailed critique of the Act—or Bill as it was at that stage—was that which was endorsed by 151 Academics (2005). This influential document, which was a submission to a Senate Enquiry into the Bill, raised many concerns about the then‐proposed legislation. One of the concerns was related to New Zealand. It suggested that New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991—a precursor and template for Australia's Work Choices Act—produced income inequality, a lower full‐time participation rate, lower real wages, flatter productivity and a “diaspora of a quarter of its population”. It will be shown that these claims are, in the main, not supported by the available evidence. Moreover, additional evidence in relation to inflation, real GDP growth, the unemployment rate and employment growth paint a much more positive, or at least nuanced, picture of New Zealand's experience in relation to the Employment Contracts Act.

Do Workplace Contracts Harm Labour Productivity Growth? A Reconsideration of the Macroeconomic Evidence from New Zealand

AbstractThis article reconsiders the argument advanced or endorsed by a large number of leading Australian academics and others that labour productivity growth in New Zealand fell markedly during the period in which New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA) was operative—that is, for most of the 1990s. On the one hand, based on total economy estimates developed by The Conference Board and the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, labour productivity growth was unexceptional though a little higher than the New Zealand average of the last three decades or so. On the other hand, based on newly released official estimates of New Zealand's ‘measured sector’ (which accounts for about two‐thirds of the total economy), labour productivity growth was almost identical to that of Australia during the EC A period. This in turn suggests that New Zealand's labour productivity growth rose markedly for the measured sector during the EC A years. All in all, the evidence presented in this article is inconsistent with claims that the period of the EC A was associated with relatively weak New Zealand productivity growth. Selected issues arising from these findings are briefly canvassed.

Bargaining and Worker Representation under New Zealand's Employment Contracts Legislation : A Review After Two Years

This paper examines the significant shift in the central philosophic and léegislative base of labour relations in New Zealand since the adoption of the Labour Relations Act in 1987 and the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. It reports two empirical studies. The first examines the collective bargaining System. The second study reports the structure and membership of trade unions in New Zealand in this new environment.

Working Free: The Origins and Impact of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act.

The Employment Contracts Act (1991), a key component of the structural reforms that have taken place in New Zealand since 1984, is discussed internationally as a model for designing new labour laws. The Act repudiated collective action and bargaining, rejecting almost a century of practice, and transformed unions and workplace relations. In this volume, an American lawyer who has spent several visits to New Zealand studying labour issues, tells how the ECA was passed, analyzes its performance as labour law, a matter of widespread disagreement, and explores its economic, social and legal impact.

Book Review: International and Comparative: Working Free: The Origins and Impact of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act

Book Review: International and Comparative: Working Free: The Origins and Impact of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act

Book Reviews : Working Free: the Origins and Impact of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act

Book Reviews : Working Free: the Origins and Impact of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act

The employment contracts act: Common law and uncommon economics

The New Zealand Employment Contracts Act 1991 is regarded internationally as a pathbreaking exercise in labour contracting, but internally is often perceived as contrary to prevailing community ideas about job security and tenure. Common law, as provisionally established by recent Employment Court rulings on fixed‐term contracts, has rekindled debate about the relationship between case law and statutory law, and, through this window, the economic role of regulatory and judicial bodies in the labour market. This paper is a contribution to the analytical framework of this debate. It is cast in terms of the definition and assignment of property rights, the role of equity and bargaining power, and the relationship of these to economic efficiency. After considering more or less bilateral aspects of contract compliance, construction and completion, a possible assignment of rights in the case of fixed‐term appointments is established, and issues of stakeholder identification, asymmetric bargaining power, and equity are considered. The paper concludes with some suggestions for an industrial relations framework under a revised Act.

Governor of Pitcairn and Associated Islands v. Sutton

508State immunity — Jurisdictional immunity — Employment — Action challenging termination of employment with Governor of Pitcairn Island — British colony — Whether activities of office of Governor of Pitcairn Island constitute sovereign functions — New Zealand Employment Contracts Act 1991 — Whether statute can be interpreted to exclude application of sovereign immunity in absence of express clause — The law of New Zealand

Flexibility in the New Zealand labour market: national or sectional interest?

The notion is explored that the New Zealand Employment Contracts Act of 1991 was designed to serve the national interest. A hypothesis is proposed that the legislation is perceived in two different ways. It is suggested that some see the act as a method of increasing economic efficiency and furthering the national interest, whereas others interpret the act as a means of supporting sectional interest: that of employers. The hypothesis is tested by several investigations of a data set that consists of a survey of labour market participants in Dunedin on the eve of the passage of the legislation. The findings support the hypothesis and the results are discussed with reference to future implications.

The New Zealand Employment Tribunal: A Review and Assessment

Beyond its more controversial bargaining and contracting provisions, New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991 incorporated procedures for the resolution of rights disputes centred in an Employment Tribunal, newly estab lished by the Act as a 'low-level, informal, specialist' body to provide 'speedy, fair, and just resolution of differences between parties to employment con tracts'. This paper assesses the performance of the tribunal and finds that it has gained broad acceptance. Nonetheless, parties to tribunal proceedings continue to encounter some delays and are experiencing increasing costs and formality. The paper examines the reasons for these problems.

Labour Market Deregulation: Perspectives from New Zealand and Abroad : An Introduction

It is now nearly four years since the enactment of New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991. Since then this journal has had two symposia on industrial law. One, in August 1991, considered the implications of the Act and another, two years later, considered the changes proposed by the Labour Opposition. It was decided to have this third symposium for two main reasons. The first was to enable leading writers to reflect back on the changes wrought by the Act, rather than simply predicting consequences. The second reason was to help the Journal's readership put the Act into international perspective by considering significant changes in industrial law overseas. To meet these two objectives the Journal invited two papers from leading New Zealand authors and three from leading Australian and British authors

Collective Bargaining and New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act: One Year On

Thefirst year of bargaining under New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act brought some very significant changes to the nature and structure of bargaining outcomes. This paper reports a major study of collective bargaining outcomes. Collective bargaining is the preferred option for 80 per cent of employers with fifty or more staff; however, the number of workers covered by collective bargains in New Zealand dropped from 721 000 in 1989-90 to an estimated 440 000 by 1991-92. The collapse of collective bargaining did not occur evenly across industries. Significant collapses happened in agriculture, food and beverage manufacturing, the textile and clothing industry, the paper and printing industry, building and construction, retailing, restaurants and hotels and the transport industry. Collective bargaining retains a strong foothold in the electricity and gas production sector, the public sector, the finance sector, the communication industry and the basic and advanced metal manufacturing sectors. A content analysis of 471 collective employment contracts (covering nearly 130 000 workers) settled in the first year of the new legislation is reported here. The data show a wide dispersion of wage settlements as the comparative wage justice system collapses; about half of the workers in the sample, however, received either a wage decrease or no increase over the preceding settlement. Important changes to working time arrangements have been negotiated and these are reported along with other content changes to working time and leave arrangements.

The Structure of Bargaining under the Employment Contracts Act

Under the Employment Contracts Act 1991, the stucture of contracting is left for negotiation beteeen the parties, rhetorically so that the parties can fashion mutually satisfactory arrangements attuned to their particular ne,eds and circumstances. This paper presents survey data that dernonstrates thatJ while the extent of employee concessions differs benveen individual and collective contracts patterns of contract structures are developing by workforce size and pre-Act union strength and show no relationship to the market circunzstances or cost pr,essures under "which firms operate. "Decisions on bargaining structure are at the hean of the management of industrial relations" (Kinnie, 1987:463). The purpose of this paper is to report, through the presentation of research data, on the structure of bargaining, and associated contract structures, emerging under New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act of 1991.