Source: Workers First Union
Workers First Union is proud to launch its new policy ideas paper, 'Take the Power Back', today at the union’s Regional Delegates Conference in Auckland.
“'Take the Power Back' is an unashamed call for unions and workers to reclaim our role in creating fresh and brave policy that’s informed by the reality of life in New Zealand’s workplaces,” said Dennis Maga, Workers First Union General Secretary.
“We’re facing new challenges brought about by new technologies, new barriers to good faith bargaining, and a hostile Government that wants to attack the very foundation of the employment relationship in our country.”
Mr Maga said the ‘Take the Power Back’ paper aimed to respond to draconian efforts from the Government to weaken workers’ rights through the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, and sought to start a real conversation about what pro-worker policy could look like in 2025.
“This is not a check-box exercise for political parties to sign up for, and not a ‘ready to run’ set of policies for immediate action – it’s about big ideas, workplace justice, and kicking off a long-overdue conversation about our country’s slide to the economic far right over the last few decades,” said Mr Maga.
The paper’s contents are outlined below, section by section.
Strengthening good faith bargaining
Mr Maga said that New Zealand’s collective bargaining system makes it too easy for employers to negotiate in bad faith.
“Surface bargaining” is a tactic often used by employers in which they merely ‘go through the motions’ with no genuine intention of reaching an agreement with workers. The paper proposes a staged bargaining process that involves automatic mediated and facilitated bargaining after a period of fruitless and meaningless negotiations, and would allow either party to ask the Employment Relations Authority to ‘fix’ the terms and conditions of an agreement when bargaining has become unduly protracted, extensive efforts have been exhausted and the parties have failed to reach an agreement.
“No one should have to spend six months – let alone a year or more – sitting across the table from a boss that is taking the mickey and hoping to break workers’ solidarity by effectively landing them in poverty while costs continue to rise around them,” said Mr Maga.
“Free-riding” is a description of bargaining settings whereby employers typically pass on improvements won by union delegates during bargaining to non-union members, who have not contributed to the process.
“We’re calling for a more widespread adoption of ‘bargaining fees’, where non-union members in a workplace governed by a Collective Agreement contribute their fair share to the negotiating party,” said Mr Maga. This would entail automatic deduction of a ‘bargaining fee’, set at a proportion of the union membership cost.
“Bargaining fees are provided for in law, but notoriously difficult to enact because non-union members can just opt out. This policy is about them contributing a fair share when delegates sometimes spend weeks or months of their lives negotiating for the betterment of all workers in a business.”
Mr Maga said the paper’s “Ending the race to the bottom” section represents an improved form of sectoral bargaining that was easier and fairer than the previous Fair Pay Agreement system, which gave employers undue influence over the process.
“We’re proposing what is known internationally as an ‘extension mechanism’ to provide sectoral-level outcomes more efficiently,” said Mr Maga. “If there are collective agreements in a given industry, the relevant unions would elect an ‘industry standard’ agreement which the government must use to set a statutory floor for terms of employment in that sector.”
Two-thirds of OECD countries use extension mechanisms or their equivalents, which improve workers’ quality of life and spread best practices throughout a sector. Mr Maga gave the example of the supermarket duopoly, in which Foodstuffs stores (Pak ‘n Save, New World) lag behind the improved conditions of the nationwide Woolworths agreement. Under this policy, the Woolworths agreement would set the minimum standards of pay and conditions across the sector, and Foodstuffs would be required to meet them.
Building economic democracy
“Our political system is largely democratic, but our workplaces do not operate in the same way,” said Mr Maga. “We want workers to have more of a say in their workplace and their industry.”
The paper proposes ‘opt-out’ union enrolment as a default policy setting. In workplaces with an existing collective agreement, employees would be enrolled in their union by default after 30 days unless they actively chose not to join. This would make it harder for bad employers to intimidate their employees, and more workers would start their jobs with the protections of union membership.
“We’re also putting forward policies to establish worker representation on company boards like many other countries already do, and our brand-new idea of creating ‘worker assemblies',” said Mr Maga.
Union members across each sector or industry would have the right to elect delegates to meet regularly and discuss the issues in that sector. These assemblies would be publicly funded and have a particular focus on health and safety issues, would be resourced with research support and required to produce an annual report to government on the working conditions in that sector, ranging from wage levels to physical and psychosocial safety risks.
Government would then be required to consider and respond publicly to recommendations. Through tripartite negotiations with unions and businesses, a government would also be required to introduce appropriate safety regulations based on the assemblies’ recommendations.
Supporting strike action
“New Zealand’s workplace injury rate is 25% higher than Australia’s, and over 40% higher than Britain’s,” said Mr Maga. “73 Kiwis die at work every year; twice the rate of Australia. This is completely unacceptable.”
The union was proposing a broader right for workers to strike against Collective Agreement breaches, clarifying the right to strike on health and safety grounds, and introducing four hours of paid time per year for workers’ civic participation.
Improving supply chains
“Too many goods entering our market are tainted by forced labour, and New Zealand consumers are unwittingly financing exploitation,” said Mr Maga.
The union says New Zealand should follow the recent example of the EU in banning the sale, import and export of goods made using forced labour.
Mr Maga said that to maintain and deepen the improvement of supply chains in Aotearoa, large businesses and government bodies should annually disclose the modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains, and what they are doing to mitigate these risks, with reports made available publicly.
“It’s totally unacceptable that in 2025, we are still financing forced labour overseas, and we need to live our values as country by being diligent about our supply chains and reporting publicly when there are risks.”
Addressing tech ‘disruption’
Mr Maga said the recent Supreme Court judgment on Uber drivers’ misclassification had provided unprecedented clarity on platform work in the gig economy.
“Platform workers have no employment rights in Aotearoa: no minimum wage, no sick leave, no annual leave and no right to join a union. They also have no right to recourse if their employer mistreats them. New forms of work via apps are bypassing employment protections and leaving workers in a semantic gap between ‘contractor’ and ‘employee’,” said Mr Maga.
“We have to resist efforts by our Government to enshrine this misclassification in law.”
The ‘Take the Power Back’ paper proposes that, as in the EU, employee status for gig workers must be the ‘default legal presumption’; and if companies wish to challenge a worker’s status, they can pursue a test to prove that a given worker is a contractor instead.
“We can refer to this as a ‘negative test’ for employment: companies using predatory labour arrangements must bear the burden of proof in demonstrating non-employment status, making workers’ rights the starting point rather than the exception,” said Mr Maga.
The paper also proposes establishing ‘Workplace AI protection agreements’ along the lines of recent NZ Council of Trade Unions advice for unions.
“We call for mandatory agreements that employers seeking to introduce AI technologies must pursue with their employees,” said Mr Maga. “These agreements would support data protection and privacy, job security, skills development, work quality requirements, and more.”
“Employers have already begun using AI tools to spy on workers, measure their productivity, and trigger disciplinary processes. While AI can be useful in various industries, it’s demonstrably harmful when used to control people.”