Kerre Woodham: What is fair and what is not when it comes to leave?

Every two weeks on a Friday, I send a silent thank you to the payroll people at NZME who put the pot of gold into my account that pays my bills. My paycheques are bit like one of those jump jets that lands on an aircraft carrier ever so briefly before bouncing off and up again. Pay packet comes in to land, pops down and whoosh, off again into the wild blue yonder. Still, it's there. My bills are paid, and I appreciate the work our team do to make that happen. It is not a job I would ever want to do or be particularly good at, especially in this modern working environment with sick days off here and new annual leave days off there, and entitlements here and wanting to take a holiday even though you haven't worked for the company for a year so that puts you into negative leave there. I mean it would be a headache every time you got up in the morning before you'd even got to it.  

It all sounds incredibly complicated, which I guess is why Workplace Minister Brooke Van Velden is looking at updating the Holidays Act. She announced the review in her speech at the Pacific Economic Development Agency yesterday and said changes in a draft bill could include pro-rating sick leave to basically make sick leave proportionate to how many hours the employee works. 

“One of the areas that I've heard a lot of concern by is that businesses have struggled to adapt to the last governments increase in the sick leave to 10 days, and I'm trying to bring in a bit of proportionality there and say yes, if you've got part time staff members, is it proportional for all of those part time workers to also have 10 days? And I'll give you a really good example of how this works, I had a person who works in a dental practice reach out to the office, they said this person who's a dental hygienist works two days a week for them, two days a week for another company, they're entitled to 20 days sick leave under the law. That's disproportionate to what a full-time worker would get. So, we're making it easier to understand and comply with, for a whole range of different work environments.” 

Okay. So, I notice that those who are against everything, basically anything that comes out of the coalition government, they’re against, but in this particular case, those who are against said, oh, it means they're not going to get as much sick leave as the full-time worker. That sick leave will be reduced under this bill. Well, yes, if you're working two days a week, should you get the same amount of sick leave as somebody who works full-time? In some cases, right now, the government of unintended consequences saw somebody getting 20 days when they should have only had ten. That seems fair, doesn't it? Brooke van Velden also said that annual leave would be under review. She has proposed shifting to an accrual system. 

“Well, annual leave is currently a proportionate, so you might get four weeks annual leave at the end of 12 months of continuous employment. We're bringing that back to accruing annual leave, which means that you'd accrue it over time. Doesn't matter that you've been there for 12 months or not. But one thing I'd make clear is that doesn't mean that people would get less annual leave than what they currently get. That is part of one of those technical changes that you're talking about.” 

Ahh technical changes! That was Brooke van Velden the Workplace Minister talking to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night. So, if you are one of those magic people that puts the pots of gold into all of our accounts at different times of the month, is it complicated? You know, there are entire software departments set up for payroll, so I imagine it is. And with the modern working environment where you're working from home, and you're working part time, and you've got flexy leave and what have you, I can imagine it would be a real nightmare. What is fair and what is not?  As a result of the unintended consequences, are we seeing people who are getting more than they're entitled to compared to their full-time colleagues? Nobody wants to be ripped off. We don't want to go back to the days of slave labour. And yes, you should get days off for part time work if you're sick.   

As the boss was saying, if Helen gets sick, we call in a part-timer to fill in for Helen. They get sick, so he has to get somebody else. So, he's paying three people now. And if you're a larger company, you can take a deep breath and absorb that. If you're a smaller company, how on earth do you sustain that? And there are people who know how to play the system. Most don't. I based that on no figures whatsoever. I just made that up. I'm assuming that most people appreciate going to work. That they even if they don't enjoy the job, they enjoy getting paid and standing on their own two feet and making their own destiny. If you're lucky, you enjoy what you do as well. So, I'm assuming most of us don't play the system.  

And think right, I'm going to have a couple of well days, which I think a lot of companies even supply anyway, but I'm going to take a couple of well days because I haven't used my 10 days sick leave. I know I only work two days a week and I've taken 8 days sick leave, despite the fact I only worked two days a week, but I'm going to take what I'm entitled to and just lie in the sun and read a book. I don't think that's fair. I think you should only take it when you're sick or when your children are sick.  

Call me old fashioned but I don't think 10 days sick leave is an entitlement necessarily. I think it's insurance for if you get sick. You don't take it as a matter of course. And I think there are plenty of cases where employers show a generosity beyond what they're legally required to do. If somebody does get genuinely sick with a long-term illness.  If you're a valued employee, they will look after you. 

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