Union lawyers create fear over new employment law

I read this media release earlier today. Three lawyers are trying to scare people into not taking jobs with employers with fewer than 20 employees in case they get sacked without reason. The lawyers say that the new Employment Relations Amendment Act exposes everyone who starts a new job in a company where there are fewer than 20 employees to the risk of being sacked without even being told the reason.

They’re wrong.

The 90 day trial period is not mandatory, so not all new employees in small businesses will be under a trial period. Furthermore, 90 days is the maximum trial period – there is no minimum. I thought to myself, do these lawyers -Helen White, Simon Mitchell and Greg Lloyd – work for unions. We know Greg Lloyd works for the National Distribution Union. The other two work for Unity Chambers. But Helen White used to work for the EPMU including work with employee grievances under the Employment Relations Act. The EPMU has organised a petition to the Governor General to ask him not to give the Act Royal Assent. The Governor General must give Royal Assent, so that’s pointless.

But what of Simon Mitchell? He specialises in acting for unions and has been counsel for the Service and Food Workers Union.

So we have three lawyers who have union connections who team up to write a scaremongering release. Now we know their backgrounds, who is surprised that they don’t want to tell the truth?

DPF raises similar points.

Disgraceful discrimination at the EPMU

Shawn Tan, who works for the EPMU, decided to stand as an ACT candidate and is 10th on the party list. He has been suspended because he didn’t apply for permission to stand.

At least that’s the reason given. His employer told him that if he was going to stand for ACT he should resign, implying that if he asked for permission, it would not be granted. It’s a shame he did not get that in writing because Andrew Little has admitted on Newstalk ZB that Mr Tan's political party of choice is a factor.

Somebody who wants to seek public office for a party whose philosophies and policies and interests are directly contrary to the interests of the union's members would obviously be foolish to say that that would not have a bearing on any application for approval.

Political opinion is a prohibited ground of discrimination, so even if Tan had tossed up whether to ask permission, he was unlawfully discriminated against even before he made the decision not to seek official permission.

Silencing political speech

I see the media and bloggers have finally got hold of the news that National is appealing the Electoral Commission's decision to register the EPMU. The Herald states that the EPMU was to be registered yesterday.

Good to see the Standard blog has wide coverage of the decision.

No Right Turn sees this whole thing as an indication that those with money and lawyers can effectively silence political speech, no matter what the law says. He says that is unacceptable in a democracy and I agree. But he gives no reason why he pretty much supported a law that let this happen.

The Electoral Finance Act is the real source of democratic unacceptablility, and its good that National is to repeal the Act.It's pretty hard to see how the EFA can be interpreted through the Bill of Rights Act when nobody seems to know how it actually complies with the BORA. I hope the case drags on and on to teach Labour and its cronies a lesson.

All four parties which supported the Electoral Finance Act have been found to have breached it, and three of them are being investigated by police.

Challenge to EPMU decision to register as Third Party

I have been advised that National is challenging the decision that the EPMU can register as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act. Again. It was supposed to have been listed today.

The Electoral Commission had decided to register the EPMU as a third party back in January, but was overturned by the High Court. Last week the Commission announced again that it would grant registration as it determined that the EPMU is not involved in the affairs of Labour.

Court papers challenging the decision were filed today.

Busted!

There is a blog called The Standard who state that they are all independent bloggers and value their anonymity. They also attack John Key quite a bit. One of the bloggers, "Steve Pierson", is Clinton Smith, whom I’ve met. Until now the others have remained anonymous but are believed to have been working in on the 9th Floor and at the EPMU. Helen Clark has denied knowledge of The Standard even though ministerial staff actually write it.

Today others were named as Chris Elder, communications staffer ninth floor, Andrew Kirton, communications staffer for Winnie Laban, and Antony Rhodes, who works in Judith Tizard’s office. The others are Neale Jones and Rob Egan, both communications advisors for the EPMU.

Another blog No8wire is run by Rob Salmond . He used to work in the PMs office and is now working at the University of Michigan. He has just written an article called Enforcing Ethical Standards in Election Campaigns for the Michigan Journal of Political Science , yet he supports the Electoral Finance Act. According to WhaleOil, he posts under the name of rOb at The Standard, yet on The Standard he has denied setting up the 08wire blog.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with 08wire and I have no idea who they are)

WhaleOil says

ROb = Rob Salmond = former DPMC staffer and credited by his own mouth as the founder of The Standard. He was previously an MFAT officer, posted to the UN in New York, then worked in the PM’s office and is now an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan

So, rOb says he is no way associated with 08wire; but Rob Salmond is. Someone is either fibbing or making untrue allegations…
David Farrar says

Rob Salmond has posted a comment admitting he worked last year for the PMs Office and is behind 08wire and that he does not produce all the material himself but receives it from others….what is not denied is that material for all three anonymous sites is produced by parliamentary staffers.

Why should taxpayers fund people to write blogs in work time – including writing posts for overseas blogs. First Labour gets a photo of a family from Washington for their glossy brochures, now they are getting a person in Michigan to campaign via the blogosphere.

I posted a short comment on The Standard regarding the above. They banned my comment - but didn't deny it was true - and replaced it with this

Dave... As someone who purports to be a journalist I'd have thought you would know better than to take Farrar/Whale's 'research' at face value.

I don`t "purport" to be a journalist. And I have done my own checks on this and have had no denials. Sure I have been a journalist in the past, but I am not currently working as one. And when someone sends you an email its not "research", research is information gathering, not checking of e-mails.

UPDATEThe Standard has responded in comments confirming this post is factual.

The EPMU decision

It's been a bit of a hectic week hence the sparse blogging but I`m back now.

The High Court decision [PDF] that the EPMU is a "natural person" under the Electoral Finance Act means that the Electoral Commission now has to determine whether the EPMU is involved in the affairs of a political party before deciding whether to register it as a Third Party. It also means that the Crown Law was wrong when it said that the EMPU was not a "natural person".

If the Electoral Commission determines that the EPMU is not involved in the affairs of Labour and registers it, I hope David Farrar, who took the action, will object. EPMU boss Andrew Little has been lined up to be Labour's president, should Mike Williams go, Little is on on Labour's governing council, almost stood as a candidate, and the EPMU is an affiliate of Labour. EPMU communications are constantly anti National, so it is hardly a politically independent union. If the EPMU is deemed not to be involved in the affairs of Labour, then there would be no reason why groups such as ACT on Campus can register as a third party either, given they are less involved in the affairs of Act than the EPMU is in Labour's affairs.