Editorial: Rust clogs wheels of economy

Rust never sleeps, says the Prime Minister frequently, referring to the "new right" agenda she discerns in her National opponent Don Brash. Rust seems the wrong description for ideas that, were they put into effect, would introduce more flexibility and competitive efficiency to state services such as education, road construction and much else. Rust seems more apposite to some of the restrictive working arrangements the labour movement would like to seal for itself under this Government.

It certainly never sleeps. Several times in the six years Labour has been in power the Council of Trade Unions has tried, for example, to have industrial law amended in a way that would force competing companies into "multi-employer collective agreements", another name for the industry awards of a previous era. The council is making another attempt now. The Labour Party's industrial relations policy for this election proposes, among other things, to encourage central and local government organisations to facilitate multi-employer collective agreements when those are sought by unions.

The plank has been overshadowed by other elements of the policy, most notably a proposal to legislate that all workers must be given meal breaks. That, too, is part of an agenda to restore the rigid award provisions of a previous era by a different means. Where once the union movement was powerful enough to put the likes of meal breaks into negotiated agreements, it now relies on legislation. And legislation is a more corrosive form of rust than even the award system used to be.
The proposed mandatory meal breaks, for example, are intended mainly for workers in low-paid service industries who, according to the CTU, are too weak to negotiate meal breaks for themselves. But it will be difficult to write a law that looks after them without imposing another needless restriction on general working practices. Many people, left to make their own decisions, prefer to minimise interruptions and get through their work faster. That may also be true of low-paid cleaners and others whose interests the CTU presumes to know. People working outside normal hours would probably far rather finish early than take a full statutory break in the dead of night.

Employers and staff are far more likely to agree on mutually beneficial arrangements. But bit by bit their room for agreement is being reduced by legislators who think they know best. In the name of health and safety, holiday entitlements, "good faith" bargaining, equal opportunities, protections against unjustified dismissal and other statutory assumptions, the costs and risks of employing people in this country have escalated fearfully under this Government.

Fearfully only for employers, though, while the economy has been expanding to the limits of its available labour and the country's unemployment has dropped to the lowest level in the developed world. If the economy reaches capacity and slows, as is forecast for the next year or so, the Government might live to regret some of its commitments to the union movement this week. Announcing them, Helen Clark said the details would be "worked through" with both unions and employer representatives. But policy announced in election campaigns has a binding quality. No matter how little discussion or enthusiasm the policy attracts, a "mandate" will be taken for granted.

Do we really want binding meal breaks? Under modern working patterns and pressures it would be a law more honoured in the breach. But while that might not trouble employees the law cannot safely be ignored by employers. It would be one more risk for them and one more bit of rust on the cogs of the economy.