IN New Zealand the Labour government is planning to introduce a nationwide collective bargaining system known as the Fair Pay Act.

Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood, who is piloting the plans, has accused BusinessNZ — the country’s employers’ body — of running an “active misinformation” campaign after an ILO committee found the law was not inconsistent with international conventions.

BusinessNZ argued before an ILO committee that fair pay agreements would constitute compulsory arbitration in breach of ILO Convention 98 on the right to organise and join unions and bargain collectively.

Wood said it was pleasing to have support from the Australian government, after a government representative, Felicity Rowe, spoke in support of FPAs before the ILO’s committee.

Rowe said Australia respected the “rights of countries to implement measures, appropriate to national conditions, to encourage and facilitate collective bargaining between employers and workers. 

“Australia fully supports the objectives of the proposed fair pay agreement system, a system that is intended to deliver better living standards for workers and their families and provide an environment that enhances productivity, growth and the sustainability of enterprises.

“The Australian government believes sectoral minimum standards, supplemented by collective bargaining, provides the right balance between a safety net on the one hand, and driving wage growth and productivity on the other.”

Wood slammed New Zealand employers who he said have been running “active misinformation campaigns and vexatious complaints to international bodies, do a disservice to the employers that actually want to make the change required to help New Zealand realise its economic potential.

“After the ILO conclusion it’s time for BusinessNZ to come back to the table and work with us to introduce a system that allows industries to set minimum pay and working conditions to stop a race to the bottom. Sector based minimum standards are common place across the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], including Australia and most of Europe.

“It’s time to leave the hyperbole at home and engage in rolling out an employment relations system that is fairly commonplace around the world.  

“New Zealand’s 30-year experiment with a low-cost labour model hasn’t worked. Many workers have suffered, but, equally, our rates of labour productivity have been amongst the worst in the world under that regime.”

In Britain the Labour Party has picked up the New Zealand fair pay agreements model as part of the New Deal For Workers policy.