Mike's Minute: Why are we looking to discuss employee pay?

It’s the sort of theoretical nonsense you would expect from a bunch of wonks like the Labour Party, but blow me down if National hasn't clambered on board as well. 

Camilla Belich has a Member’s bill. Member's bills don’t normally get to where hers has, given if they did, the party would have already run with the idea. 

But her Employee Remuneration Disclosure Amendment Bill has passed its second reading and given National have turned up, it seems it will become law. 

"The underlying reason for the bill is to ensure that people who are discriminated against, have the ability relative to other employees doing the same work and allows them to discuss that." 

Discuss it? Are you serious? “Jenny told me she earns $76,000 a year and we all know she is useless, so how come I'm on $69,000?” 

Obviously the room for interpretation here, or misinterpretation, is immense. 

What you think of yourself versus what the person handing out the money thinks might be very different things. 

Jenny might have been there longer, might have been hired away from another employer (hence they needed a sweetener to get her across the line), or she might have been employed by a different person in the same company. 

None of this leads anywhere productive. 

This is a “sticky beak” law that will lead to resentment, anger, and/or fury, about who does what, gets what and what they're really worth. 

It will be office gossip. It will lead to people ganging up on others, to rumour, to spread innuendo. It will lead to backstabbing and a general sense of unease. 

Not to mention the fact that if you have an arrangement with your boss, that’s between you and your boss. There is a privacy issue. 

Obviously unionised jobs of mass pay are different. But a lot of the world is on a contract and that contract is a legally binding understanding between you and the other party. 

I'm not sure Camilla or her party, or now National, quite get the fallout that’s coming. 

If I told you my income it would be a headline in Stuff this morning and a national debate would ensure, and 10,000 keyboard warriors would have a field day. 

Under this new law there is nothing stopping me. 

So watch this space. 

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