The Labour-led Government moved quickly after taking office in 2017, to restrict the use of 90-day trial periods to businesses employing fewer than 20 employees. Labour and the Greens would have scrapped the policy entirely but New Zealand First insisted that it should still be available to SMEs.

Those in favour of the 90-day period argue that it enables businesses to give more potential hires a go, which ties into the most important employment issue; access to skills and talent. Opponents worry that the flexibility to lay workers off will be abused.

In our experience, concerns about widespread abuse were not borne out when there was full availability but may become a greater risk in uncertain times. On the other hand, when unemployment is high and jobs are desperately needed, it seems counter-intuitive to put up obstacles to employment – and the law does provide protections to the worker beyond tenure.

The survey shows good support for collective bargaining at an enterprise level, with 53% of respondents agreeing that employment relations legislation should favour bargaining at the enterprise level, but very little support for collective bargaining at a national level (10%). No one is going to restore the national award system, but Labour is committed to promoting a form of extra-enterprise collective bargaining through its Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs). These are also strongly supported by the Greens, who tried to have them legislated for under urgency during the lockdown.

Progress on this issue has been decidedly slow. The Bolger-led Fair Pay Working Group delivered its report in December 2018 and submissions on the discussion paper closed in November 2019, but we have yet to see any legislation.

This may reflect a lack of consensus within the coalition from more business-friendly NZ First. The Working Group was sharply divided over whether participation should be voluntary or compulsory, the trigger threshold for a negotiation, and whether employers should be able to opt out of the bargaining process and out of any resulting FPA at any time.

The other key topic coming out of the survey is the strong support from business for the use of contractors and other flexible labour, with 68% saying that this was important to their business. Labour has, over the course of this term, introduced additional regulation to govern the use of temporary labour.

The Triangular Employment Amendment Act came into force at the end of June 2020. It permits employees who are employed by one employer but working under the control and direction of another business or organisation to enjoy the benefits of any applicable collective agreement, and to bring a personal grievance against that other business or organisation.

Labour also has plans to introduce minimum rights for ‘dependent contractors’ and to change the test of who is classed as a contractor.