Grant Morgan, Auckland

Slap workers in the face and call it a helping hand. That’s the strategy behind a “work probation” bill sponsored by National Party MP Wayne Mapp.

Ross Wilson, president of the NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU), wrote in an April 13 article for The Unionist that Mapp’s bill means the “complete removal of any employment rights for the first 90 days”.

During this probation period, a boss will be able to sack a worker without giving any reason or facing any penalty. You can imagine what would happen to anyone who stands up for their rights on the job. Discrimination against active unionists, which is supposed to be unlawful, would in essence become legalised.

In the memorable words of an May 3 NZ Herald article by David Lowe of the Employers and Manufacturers Association, “committed employees have nothing to fear”. Note the chilling language — “committed employees”. Skilled and competent staff may still be sacked without explanation. The only new hires to be safe would be those “committed” to the boss — suck up or ship out.

Mapp’s bill won its first vote in parliament on April 15 thanks to support from two of Labour’s coalition allies, NZ First and United Future, along with three out of four Maori Party MPs. It now goes to a select committee for public submissions, then faces two more parliamentary votes.

Mapp claims his bill will help “vulnerable” people, such as unemployed youth, because it protects bosses from the risks associated with hiring more staff. It’s funny hearing Mapp using such politically correct language to disguise his bill’s real intentions, since he is the National Party’s official “PC eradicator”.

Mapp’s corporate PC has been punctured by anti-capitalist network Radical Youth, which says his bill “will make workers even more vulnerable to predatory employers”.

After organising a thousand-strong high school students’ march in Auckland against youth rates on March 20, Radical Youth warned of “walkouts and strike action by young people” against Mapp’s bill.

Anyone who dismissed these words as merely “youthful heroics” would have got a jolt when a similar call to arms came from the distinctly unyouthful Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, New Zealand’s largest union.

The EPMU is led by Andrew Little. Although widely seen as a union moderate who’s being tipped for a safe Labour seat next election, last year Little initiated a campaign for a 5% pay rise that sparked a general pay revolt.

Now Little is heading a union charge against Mapp’s bill, which he slams as a “naked attack” on workers’ rights. Little is promising a “massive” campaign against Mapp's bill, starting on July 20 with a union stop work and march to parliament. It has full backing from the CTU.

When the mood of mainstream unionists matches the mood of youthful radicals, that’s the time when sparks fly — just like they did in France when a coalition of workers and students brought 3 million opponents of a similar law onto the streets and forced a government U-turn.

If sparks really do fly, they may burn more than the National’s Mapp of exploitation. Under Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Employment Relations Act, any union stop work over Mapp's bill would be classed as an unlawful political strike. Unionists could be taken to court and face jail sentences and huge fines.

Would the law be used against union opponents of Mapp’s bill? Little doubts that any employer would be “silly enough to try”. If it did come to the crunch, however, unionists would face a stark choice: either back away from stoppages against Mapp’s bill, or defy Labour’s legal ban on political strikes.

[Reprinted from Workers Charter. Visit <http://www.workerscharter.org.nz>. Grant Morgan is an editor of Unity, a quarterly Marxist journal for grassroots activists. A new edition will soon be out on the theme of “Strikes — the workers’ weapon”. Email <gcm@actrix.co.nz> to order a copy (NZ$5 plus postage).]

From Green Left Weekly, May 24, 2006.
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