Workers win back one lost holiday

Photo / Martin Sykes

Most New Zealanders will miss out on a holiday next year when Anzac Day and Easter Monday fall on the same day - but a precedent-setting agreement for metal workers has brought substitute holidays closer to reality.

The agreement, the first of its kind, gives 2000 metal and manufacturing workers a one-off holiday in 2011 to make up for missed public holidays.

Unions are optimistic other employment contracts will follow suit - and such substitute holidays will eventually become the law for everyone.

There will be nine public holidays next year - two fewer than usual - as Waitangi Day falls on a Sunday and Anzac Day on Easter Monday.

The metal workers' collective agreement, negotiated by the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, would make up for one of the lost holidays.

The union's national secretary, Andrew Little, said workers deserved their usual number of holidays every year.

"It took some effort to get it. We managed to get it without having to take industrial action, but there was a threat," Mr Little said.

The collective agreement was the union's biggest and had set a precedent, he said.

"We will make the claim in other negotiations from now on."

Only a quarter of workers in this country were in unions, and the law would have to change for the rest to get the same benefit.

"Holiday legislation seems to follow trends already happening. If we get them [extra holidays] into a reasonable proportion of collective agreements, then the Government has to say this has become the norm and put it in the [Holidays] Act."

Workers would work as much as they did in other years so employers would not be any worse off, Mr Little said.

But Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson said if substitute holidays became compulsory, the country would suffer from lost productivity.

"That employers and employees reached an agreement is key here. If they've agreed, then we're happy, employers are happy, and employees are happy.

"But it shouldn't be seen as something that because one group have reached that agreement it should be legislated for the whole country."

Forcing it on all companies would hurt the economy, Mr Thompson said.

"If society as a whole is prepared to not have such high standards of living and have lower wages, to bear the cost of this, then that's fine.

"But when it becomes compulsory across all employers, it becomes a problem."

Employers would look at extra holidays as a part of wider wage negotiations, Mr Thompson said.

The metal workers' collective agreement includes a 3 per cent wage increase this year and next.