Strong rights and fair pay
The Green Party will reduce inequity, protect working conditions, and improve the lives and rights of working people.
Everyone has the right to safe, decent and meaningful work.
Our jobs should pay enough to live on and allow for time with whānau.
But right now, Aotearoa is not working for all working people.
Thousands of people are forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and successive governments have given big business too much control over our lives.
For decades, the Green Party has fought to improve the lives of working people. We have helped pass Fair Pay Agreements and increase sick leave to 10 days. We have also pushed to introduce pay transparency requirements – to help close the gender and ethnic pay gap, and foster fairness for Māori and Pasifika workers.
Our plan builds on this to make sure all working people have strong rights, good pay and secure work. Our Income Guarantee will also make sure people always have enough to live on if they ever experience a health condition or disability that stops them from working.
The Green Party will grant strong workplace protections, and support unions to bargain for their members to deliver a better working life for all.
The time is now to change the world of work for the good of everyone.
Our plan
- Guarantee minimum wage increases at least in line with inflation.
- Provide all working people with a right to redundancy pay, and ensure progress on income insurance centres the need for equity for low wage and insecure workers.
- Move to default union membership so people automatically join a union when they start a new job, and can then opt-out.
- Legislate for a right to solidarity strikes and political strikes.
- Implement stronger protections for contractors and ensure they can be covered by Fair Pay Agreements and join other industry-specific collective bargaining; while also strengthening collective bargaining frameworks for employees.
- Increase resources across the Labour Inspectorate, WorkSafe, and the Employment Relations Authority to ensure all working people can uphold their workplace rights.
- Ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Violence and Harassment Convention against violence at work (ILO 190) and progress reforms to prevent and respond to bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment in the workplace.
- Phase in five weeks annual leave, implement the Holidays Act Taskforce recommendations, ensure bereavement leave entitlements are culturally appropriate for all New Zealanders and acknowledge the particular significance of tangihanga for Māori.