Some of van Velden\u2019s changes were signalled in June by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who supported \u201cpro-rating sick leave\u201d to address how some part-time employees were receiving \u201cfull-time 10-day equivalency\u201d. <\/p>\n
Van Velden is expected to speak to media about the announcement about 3.15pm. A livestream can be found at the top of this article.<\/p>\n
The Cabinet paper, considered in August, detailed van Velden\u2019s view the previous Labour Government\u2019s attempts to fix the act had \u201cmissed the mark\u201d and the legislation was \u201cbroken\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite good intentions, virtually all employers have, at times, got aspects of its calculations wrong,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nub of the problem is that employees\u2019 entitlements to holiday pay are denoted in weeks, but hours vary for many employees. Parties then have to figure out how to define a working week for each employee, which can be challenging for employees who work variable hours. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis basic problem has led to enormous complexity, confusion, and widespread non-compliance, as people have tried to muddle through each circumstance as best they could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green MP Teanau Tuiono has strongly condemned the proposal in the past. Photo \/ NZME <\/p>\n
Van Velden\u2019s solution was to shift to hours-based accrual, claiming leave balances would then better reflect actual hours worked without \u201cany scaling for increases or decreases in standard hours\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cCompared with the status quo, employees who increase their standard hours might notice their leave doesn\u2019t go as far,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cEqually, employees who decrease their standard hours won\u2019t see any reduction as they would have in the past. <\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers will no longer need to monitor and re-calculate annual leave balances whenever employees agree to different working patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sick leave would also be calculated in a similar fashion. While it wouldn\u2019t impact the 10-day maximum allowance for full-time workers, part-time workers would have no minimum entitlement. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will ensure employees receive a sick leave entitlement that is proportionate to the amount they work,\u201d van Velden\u2019s paper said. <\/p>\n
This move attracted strong criticism when raised in June, Green Party Workplace Relations spokesperson Teanau Tuiono saying at the time it would be \u201cnothing short of an attack on the morale and productivity of our workforce\u201d.<\/p>\n
Van Velden has also sought to simplify compensation for additional hours worked, opting not to allow workers to gain more leave but to require employers to make a \u201cleave compensation payment\u201d of 12.5%. <\/p>\n
According to the paper, van Velden was concerned in allowing greater accrual, employers would face \u201clarger leave liabilities\u201d and instead preferred an immediate payment. <\/p>\n
She acknowledged it could increase costs for employers if employees didn\u2019t use their full sick leave entitlement, but argued it would be partly offset by a decrease in paid leave. <\/p>\n
Casual workers would also receive the payment as opposed to accruing annual or sick leave, under the proposal. <\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of van Velden\u2019s changes were signalled in June by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who supported \u201cpro-rating sick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4619,806,13912,34750,2082,7237,24912,305,42,2956,12514,2250,29484,43,5202,34751,16860,8263,34752,27916,40,38,41,39,1533,4576,4478],"class_list":["post-37818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-act","tag-as","tag-broken","tag-entitlement","tag-for","tag-governments","tag-govt","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-holidays","tag-leave","tag-longer","tag-minimum","tag-news","tag-part","tag-parttime","tag-reform","tag-reforms","tag-scrapped","tag-sick","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-will","tag-work","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}