Submission by

Hospitality Association of New Zealand

to the

Transport and Industrial Relations Committee

on the

Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill

30 May 2008

Hospitality Association of New Zealand
Level 2, Radio Network House, Corner Abel Smith and Taranaki Streets
PO Box 503, Wellington
Phone: 04 385 1369
Fax: 04 384 8044
www.hanz.org.nz

Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill

Members of the Select Committee

The Hospitality Association of New Zealand represents a diverse variety of New Zealand hospitality businesses including restaurants, caf￩ bars, hotels, off-licenses, casinos and a wide array of short and long term accommodation providers.

The Association is voluntary and is funded by membership subscriptions. Our membership of 2360 plus members employ 11,610 full-time and 19,674 part time employees for a total of around 30,000 people. Approximately 83% of the Association’s members employer fewer than 15 employees. The Association asserts that this figure mirrors the wider hospitality industry.

There is also a perception that the Association speaks for and represents the interests of the hospitality industry as a whole.

The Association supports the submission on the Bill by Business New Zealand.

The Association would appreciate an opportunity to be heard before the Committee on its submission.

Bruce H Robertson
Chief Executive
Hospitality Association of New Zealand

1. Introduction

1.1. The Association supports the intent of the Bill to provide useful flexibility and enhance the Act.

1.2. We believe that the original intention of the Act was to give employers and employees the flexibility to transfer a public holiday, from a day listed in the Act to another continuous 24 hour period for reasons of cultural or personal significance or for reasons of convenience and that the arrangement under section 44 of the Act was designed to give effect to this object.

1.3. The Association therefore supports the Bill and recommends that it proceed to overcome the difficulties following the decision of the Supreme Court in New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association Industrial Union of Workers Incorporated v Air New Zealand Limited, but with an amendment to provide for the ability for the parties to an employment agreement to agree to transfer a public holiday to any other continuous 24 hour period rather than confining the transferred day as beginning or ending on one of the specified public holidays as the Bill is presently confined.

2. Public Holidays

2.1 One of the objects of the Holidays Act is to promote balance between work and other aspects of employees’ lives and, to that end, to provide employees with minimum entitlements to public holidays for the observance of days of national, religious or cultural significance.

2.2 According to Statistics New Zealand’s annual labour market reporting series, approximately one quarter of the current New Zealand Labour force are non European and that this figure is increasing at a faster rate than the European component.

2.3 Between 2001 and 2007 the labour force grew by approximately 12% while the component of the labour force that are not European, Maori or Pacific more than doubled with Maori and Pacific components alone increasing by around 10% each.(1)

2.4 We believe that these trends are significant and have importance for the New Zealand workforce, public holidays and the objects of the Holidays Act.

2.5 For a real example, an employee engaged to work on one of the public holidays specified in section 44 (1) of the Act may wish to transfer their entitlement to that public holiday, but to a day that has particular national, religious or cultural significance to them.

2.6 Indeed, a chef may be required to work on the Queen’s Birthday holiday and agrees to do so, perhaps because the Queen's Birthday holiday has no significance, and in exchange, transfer their entitlement to a public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday holiday to a 24 hour period at a time of religious significance for them known as Ramadan.

2.7 However, under the Bill such an arrangement would not be possible because the religious observance known as Ramadan does not fall within the chef’s shift that begins or ends with the Queen’s Birthday holiday.

2.8 Therefore, for such employees the intent of the Act under section 3 (b) to provide for the observance of days of significance as “public holidays” cannot be said to have been achieved.

2.9 The Bill for such employees would therefore achieve nothing.

2.10 We therefore believe that the Bill should be amended to enable this and in doing so promote the object of the Act. A suggested amendment to section 44A is as follows:

(2) An employer and employee may agree (whether in an employment agreement or otherwise)—

(a) that all or part of 1 or more days specified in section 44(1) are

to be treated as not part of a public holiday~ and

(b) that another continuous period of 24 hours, starting and finishing at times as agreed by the parties, is to be treated as a public holiday for the purposes of that day specified in section 44 (1).

2.11 Provided that such agreements do not exclude or reduce minimum entitlements, we believe that the parties should be able to agree on arrangements that both reflect this increasing workforce diversity and work life balance.

That the bill proceed with amendments.

 (1) Statistics New Zealand 2008 Labour Market Statistics 2007 Table 11.02, p146