Collective Labour Law Notes

Labour Law 26th May 2011: Collective Labour Law: Most lawyers don't ususally deal with it. In a sense it's more of a boutique area. Important if you're working in the public sector. Mainly black letter law, changes quite frequently. Very detailed. Unions are a major player. Often quite contentious. Raises fairly strong feelings in New Zealand and other countries. Unionising workplaces. In New Zealand the main struggle is to get people to join unions. Prejudice against unions. Partly inheritance from the class system - small businesses and farmers traditionally have been hostile to unions. Unions mainly in the public sector (PSA, NZEI, Nurses' Organisation, EPMU strongest union Engineers, service and foodworkers union) Trade unions used to be unlawful. They were considered to be unlawful conspiracies. They were unlawful because they were groups of people who banded together to withhold labour - withholding labour is a breach of contract, and doing it together is a conspiracy. Trade unions legalised, able to own property, have programs of worker education. Still had laws that regulated their activities. A lot of the activity, collective bargaining was held outside of the law. Two ILO conventions - 87, 88. 87 deals with the independence of trade unions and the right of trade unions to exist - unions had the right to decide their own programs. Government authorities can't suspend unions from doing what they do. ILO conventions are like any other international treaties. NZ has not ratified convention 87 - stumbling block is that NZ law does not allow for strikes over political and social issues. Strikes are only lawful if you are negotiating a collective agreement or there is a health and safety issue in the workplace. NZ has ratified convention 98 in 2003 - deals with the protection and promotion of unions. Probably the most important aspect of convention 98 is that employers organisations and unions have to be autonomous, membership has to be independent - employers can't interfere. Ratified by NZ because NZ was already compliant. New Zealand does not ratify treaties that it is not already compliant with. s3(b) Object of the employment relations act - to support observence of principles of these two ILO conventions. Freedom of Association: Mainstream right - free to associate in religious, ethical, political, social groupings. Libertarian or new-right perspective on freedom of association - freedom to disassociate. Under Employment Contracts Act, freedom not to join a union because there used to be compulsory or de-facto compulsory unionism. Under current labour law, workers have the freedom to associate but they have to be unions registered under the ERA. Freedom not to belong to a union if they so choose. Belong to a union means you have to pay union dues (can be $300-800! per year!)

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