Supportive Legislation, Unsupportive Employers and Collective Bargaining in New Zealand

Abstract

In New Zealand in the 1990s, labour market decentralization and new employment legislation precipitated a sharp decline in unionism and collective bargaining coverage; trends that continued well into the 2000s even after the introduction of the more supportive Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA). The ERA prescribed new bargaining rules, which included a good faith obligation, increased union rights and promoted collective bargaining as the key to building productive employment relationships (Anderson, 2004; May and Walsh, 2002). In this respect the ERA provided scope for increased collective bargaining and union renewal (Harbridge and Thickett, 2003; May, 2003a and 2003b; May and Walsh, 2002). Despite these predictions and the ERA's overall intent, the decline in collective bargaining coverage begun in the 1990s has continued unabated in the private sector. It has naturally been questioned why the ERA has not reversed, or at least halted, this downward trend. So far research has focused on the impact of the legislation itself and much less on employer behaviour and perceptions, or on their contribution to these trends. This article addresses the paucity of employer focused research in New Zealand. The research explores views of employers on the benefi ts of collective bargaining, how decisions to engage or not engage in collective bargaining are made and the factors instrumental to them. It is demonstrated that the preferred method of setting pay and conditions continues to be individual bargaining. This is especially so for organizations with less than 50 employees, by far the largest majority of fi rms in New Zealand. Frequently, these smaller organizations see no perceived benefits from collective bargaining. Overall, these fi ndings suggest that despite a decade of supportive legislation there are few signs that the 20 year decline in collective bargaining coverage in New Zealand will be reversed.

Making sense of employer collectivism – The case of Danish wage bargaining under recession

“…The quotes in this article reveal a path-dependent logic, that is the collective bargaining system is believed to be able to solve the challenges stemming from the recession. The absence of a competing causal story of how the deteriorated Danish cost competitiveness should be solved holds the bargaining system together (for accounts where the causal story changed, see Culpepper, 2008; Foster et al., 2011). Third, sensemaking makes the analysis attuned to how strategic actions are often about persuading and listening in the face ambiguity.…”

“…Also, managerial ‘frames of reference’ based on unitarist or pluralist attitudes might be used by employers (cf. Foster et al., 2011). As such, employers engage in activities similar to social scientists that work within certain causal universes that link certain conditions with certain outcomes and sometimes revise both the conditions and the outcomes of interest.…”

The Cranet Survey: Improving on a Challenged Research-Practice?

“…For instance, he argues that a lower interest in HRM in US is because interests of US employers are unfettered by unionized labor and government regulation that could balance the interests in the labor market (Capelli, 2015: 60). This is clearly also relevant in respect of New Zealand employers (see Foster et al, 2011, Rasmussen, 2016 and in respect of Danish employers, where the opposite is the case.…”

The Impacts and Non-Impacts on Unions of Enterprise Bargaining

“…Whether that helped is difficult to confirm, but Australian unions appear in a stronger position than their counterparts in New Zealand, where no transition occurred. Despite similar levels of aggregate union density, only 9 per cent of private sector employees there are covered by collective agreements (Foster, Rasmussen, Murrie and Laird, 2011).…”