Employment relations specialist Phillip de Wattignar says the outcry over recent breaches of employment law misses the point.
Recent media coverage about breaches of employment and immigration laws fails to address the causes of the problem.
Comments provided from Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Jackie Blue and Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials suggest the public is somehow responsible and needs to be involved.
Those views are mistaken.
It is not the responsibility of the community, and nor is it the fault of feckless workers who do not join unions, that workplace abuses are rife in the service sector.
The law actually requires employees to take responsibility for enforcing their own individual employment agreements.
Compare this with union members who are able to have the anonymity and protection of a union official to enforce collective agreements without the risk of retaliation.
The role of the Government's MBIE in all of this has been contradictory.
At best, the role of MBIE labour inspector staff is a political palliative.
Labour inspectors have no powers to enforce employment agreements and nor should they.
Inspectors have a focus on minimum wage, holiday pay and wages protection.
At worst, MBIE has contributed directly by rewarding its immigration staff for bringing in isolated and unsupported Third World labour.
These migrant workers staff many of the service sector jobs where the worst cases of exploitation and breaches are occurring.
Government has a deplorable and inconsistent labour market policy.
The motives that have brought about this situation are political.
Former National Party MP Dr Blue, who reportedly said it was everybody's problem and everyone had to take responsibility, is crying crocodile tears.
Dr Blue and her colleagues in the National Party caucus introduced amendments to the Employment Relations Act that forbid unions entry to the non-union workplaces where exploitation and breaches of the law occur.
So your editorial criticism (5.12.14) of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) for not acting is undeserved, because unions are denied access to the problem workplaces to speak to non-union employees, investigate and act for them.
The law deliberately enables isolation and domination of the weak and unorganised by unscrupulous shift managers in the service sector.
Owners and directors of these businesses often resemble the three monkeys when viewing their annual accounts: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
There is surely a case for law changes similar to the recent health and safety amendments that would make these directors personally liable.
The Labour Party and the Green Party are also responsible.
They have locked out more than 80% of the total private sector working population (those not in unions) from collective bargaining at the enterprise level with their absurd and morally empty employment relations policies.
Any talk of a call to public action and naming and shaming bad employers is nonsense.
It is an impractical response open to abuse and unintended consequences.
It will only harm unfairly targeted businesses and job opportunities for their workers.
Such campaigns would most likely lead to a response proposing the introduction of laws outlawing boycotts.
This is what has occurred in Australia under the Tony Abbott-led Government.
The John Key-led New Zealand Government has recently picked up some of the notorious Abbott laws, such as obstructive and petty notice of strike provisions intended to defeat free wage bargaining.
It introduced a new right for employers to deduct pay for partial strikes which denies employees in unions statutory wages protection rights to recover wrongful or disputed deductions.
So it is not yet time to take a stand.
Solidarity and concern for others are absent in the post-union workplace where this should occur.
This state of affairs has also been noticed as contributing to the appalling health and safety situation in many non-union workplaces.
The employment legislation of the past 14 years has failed most of the workforce.
Change must come from Parliament.
• Phillip de Wattignar is an independent employment relations advocate and mediator. His more than 30 years' experience includes work as a union organiser and 12 years as a full-time employment mediator.
