Latest / Best of Business / Amy Ross: employment relations expert voices support for new bill protecting employees' rights to discuss their wages

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Amy Ross: employment relations expert voices support for new bill protecting employees' rights to discuss their wages · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Would you like to tell you workmates about your salary
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  Speaker 2: but your contract stops you from doing that. There's a
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  Speaker 2: labor bill that's going through Parliament at the moment, currently
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  Speaker 2: making its way through the House to protect employees' rights
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  Speaker 2: to speak about their salary. Labor National, the Greens and
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  Speaker 2: the Maldi Party all voted for it at the first
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  Speaker 2: reading act in New Zealand. First we're in Nate. Amy
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  Speaker 2: Ross is an employment relations expert director of work Ethics.
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  Speaker 2: She's with me now, Hi, Amy, curea good to have
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  Speaker 2: you on the show. Do you actually want Do you
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  Speaker 2: think kewies actually want to tell their workmates how much
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  Speaker 2: they're getting paid?
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  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people do, and I think
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  Speaker 3: they should have the protected right to do so if
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  Speaker 3: they wish. I mean, the information about what you earn
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  Speaker 3: is effectively your information, so you should be able to
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  Speaker 3: share it if you want to. You shouldn't be forced,
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  Speaker 3: and you can still under this alteration say oh no,
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  Speaker 3: I'll keep that to myself. Thanks, But if I want
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  Speaker 3: to be able to discuss that, and I want to
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  Speaker 3: be able to identify potential inequality in the workplace, then
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  Speaker 3: I should have the right to do so without risking
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  Speaker 3: getting fired or getting called into a disciplinary meeting.
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  Speaker 2: But no one's forcing you to sign the contract, right,
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  Speaker 2: There's no law that says no one can speak about
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  Speaker 2: their contracts or their remuneration with one another. It's only
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  Speaker 2: if you sign the contract that says you can't that
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  Speaker 2: you can't.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think we have to remember the real world,
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  Speaker 3: there's an imbalance of power between the employer and the employee.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, that's one of the opening lines in the
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  Speaker 3: Employment Relations Act, And the reason we have legal protections
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  Speaker 3: is that the employers often in a position where they
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  Speaker 3: can say sort of take it or leave it, and
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  Speaker 3: sometimes we have to take it. So I think we
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  Speaker 3: have to be realistic in that we have legal protections
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  Speaker 3: for a reason, and that is to smooth out that
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  Speaker 3: imbalance of power and make sure that employees can identify
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  Speaker 3: inequalities in the workplace in remedy those Do.
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  Speaker 2: You think they will?
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  Speaker 1: Though?
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  Speaker 2: I reckon that's the point. I don't think it's the key.
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  Speaker 2: We way to run around and tell everyone what you
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  Speaker 2: earn or how much is in your bank account or
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  Speaker 2: who you voted for. I just don't think it's in
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  Speaker 2: our psyche.
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  Speaker 3: I think that often legislation encourages conversation and a change
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  Speaker 3: in culture. And I think you're right there is a
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  Speaker 3: bit of a legacy of hangover of conservatism and being like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: you know, salary is status and status and that is private,
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  Speaker 3: and we've got to kind of keep all that under wraps.
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  Speaker 3: But actually it's not serving us because we have a
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  Speaker 3: persistent gender and ethnic pay yet. And unless we talk
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  Speaker 3: about salary and able to identify what's causing those problems,
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  Speaker 3: then we can't fix it. And legislative changes can encourage
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  Speaker 3: that conversation and can actually change society. And some of
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  Speaker 3: the legislative changes we see now seem totally normal now,
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  Speaker 3: like homosexual law form controversy at the time, completely normal now.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, legislation can do that. It can shift
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  Speaker 3: our cultural thinking.
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  Speaker 2: You're not surely you're not comparing this to homosexual law reform.
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  Speaker 3: I mean I'm saying that that's essentially what you're saying.
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  Speaker 3: We're not ready for it, but legislation to go and
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  Speaker 3: change our thinking. Okay, yeah, give us our rights and
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  Speaker 3: protections that we are.
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  Speaker 2: Deserving, what I'm saying, But you have the protections. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there's no law that says you are not allowed to
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  Speaker 2: discuss your remuneration. It's only if you sign your rights
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  Speaker 2: away that you lose that protection, you know what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So the Act is silent on it at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: which gives employers the capacity to write those clauses in
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  Speaker 3: to an agreement.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hardly a Martin Luther King moment, is it,
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  Speaker 2: I mean what we're talking about.
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  Speaker 3: No, but it's but you know, if you're going to
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  Speaker 3: make the point about we're not ready for it, it's
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  Speaker 3: an example about how legislation can also shift cultural thinking
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  Speaker 3: over time, and how things which seem like transformative or
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  Speaker 3: radical we're not ready for it, can actually be seen
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  Speaker 3: later down the track as normal. And I think that
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  Speaker 3: is all this is. It's another one of the pillars
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  Speaker 3: in the platform we need to build to actually eradicate
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  Speaker 3: an equality and pay which New Zealand is value fairness.
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  Speaker 3: You and I would agree on that, all right.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, we amy we have to leave it there, but
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  Speaker 2: we'll see what the people think about this one. I'm
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  Speaker 2: interested that you've put for a good argument. I appreciate
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  Speaker 2: you coming on the show, Amy Ross, who's an employment
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  Speaker 2: relations expert and director of work Ethics.
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