1y ago

The Green Party wants to increase annual leave to five weeks

www.rnz.co.nz Election 2023: All the latest developments on 16 September

Labour and the Greens are in Māngere for an E Tū election launch, while National was in Karaka this morning. Follow for all the latest election news with RNZ's live blog.

The Green Party has announced that it wants to increase annual leave to five weeks.
Co-leader Marama Davidson told a crowd at a E Tū election launch in Māngere today that it would provide organisations with plenty of notice and ensure the full five weeks is available for everyone by the end of 2025.

This wouldn't make NZ an unusual outlier globally, though perhaps it would be in this hemisphere - and that could be an attractive aspect as we continue to lose talent to Australia.

I'd like to see them carve out an exception for businesses that opt for a 32-hour 4-day week - either one works towards a better work-life balance and a 4-day week is a lot more personal days than just one week extra. Providing an exception for 4-day week businesses would avoid slowing uptake of the 4-day model for businesses that can make it work. The question is, how to balance the exception and leave changes for non-full-time employees?

Can NZ afford it? How many businesses are too fragile from the recent years of challenging operation. I suspect many can afford this, and that some have been pocketing the rewards of improved revenues in this inflationary environment without readily passing on those rewards. There could be more businesses struggling than we'd hope, that are too fragile from the challenges of recent years to wear the new costs.

Then again, maybe some negative impact is worthwhile for the improvement to the portion of the workforce that lacks the negotiating position to get such a deal - some executives and upper management certainly do enjoy such arrangements, including reduced days on massive salaries.

As an employee I like it.

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39 comments

All this 'we can't afford it' happened when we went from 3 weeks to 4 weeks annual leave 20 odd years ago.
And when sick leave came in.
And when the weekend came in.
Every improvement to workers' rights gets met with the same outcry. We'd still be in workhouses if we listened to it.
- You typically make those changes when the economy is doing well though, not in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
  I'd certainly like an extra week of annual leave, but cost of living is a far bigger concern to me right now.
  
  Mate, if you're concerned about the cost of living you should be worried about National prepared to dump over $15 billion onto the housing market through tax cuts geared at the upper end, landlord incentives and reintroducing foreign buyers. At the same time they're wanting to put through other changes that will restrict new supply. Prices are going to absolutely explode again.
  I honestly don't know how these types of changes track against the prevailing economic state, and it suspect it doesn't really matter - every rise to the minimum wage, every increase in entitlements gets the same response.
  You could probably go check out the Parliament hansard records from 2007 when annual leave when from 3 weeks to 4 and find the exact same arguments.
  
  Strawman arguement - you've created a new thing and argued against that.
  
  I wasn't arguing? I was pointing out something to be concerned about if the concern is the cost of living crisis.
  What I was arguing was that increases to worker conditions gets opposed by vested interests on the same grounds every time, regardless of what the economy is doing. See, here's former National MP Simon Power in Parliament in 2003 opposing the Holidays Act, which brought annual leave up from 3 weeks to the 4 we have now.
  We will not support a bill that is harmful to both employers, and people struggling out there to make a dollar in business, and we will not support a bill that, in the long run, will be bad for workers. National will be voting against this bill.
  
  You seem to be a very angry person.
  
  What seemed angry to you about that?
  
  Just the fact that you show up in every thread ready to argue with anyone and everyone. It must be exhausting being you.
  
  I mostly argue with you to be honest, which means you're also in every thread. Not sure why you keep going for personal attacks though
  
  Not OP but generally people are arguing against ideas not people.
  
  You must be new here, this guy has shown up in every single vaguely political post over the last few days primed and ready to go.
  
  This topic is not vaguely political. It's about a campaign promise from a political party.
  If you disagree with him, that's okay. There's room for all sorts of views around here, I'm sure. It's a bit rude dismissing his views by saying he just seems angry though.
  
  While I agree they seem very angry, I also recognized you as someone I tend to argue with.
  Small country
  
  For pointing out the realestate scam?
  
  Second this - right now we are expecting business to
  significantly increase wages (minimum wage more than doubled while inflation was ~29%
  recover from covid
  build up financial reserves due to significant chance of recession
  add on about an extra 3% in annual wages to cover leave
  invest significantly in sustainability
  while fighting staff shortages.
  Something is going to give
  
  Yeah, it's not a good time right now. Definitely once we're out of recession though.
  
  I wouldn't say wait until after the recession, because others are right its never a good time. What it needs is to be a part of a greater package and goal, not an ad-hoc vote gatherer at the cost of employers and inflation.
  Stop the focus on the 3 year election, and look at the longer issues our country faces and how developing these longer term goals can lead to a better working environment and reduced costs of living - an incredibly difficult task considering in the global scale our country is little more than a large suburb in a major city and we have little choice but to go with the flow.

39 comments