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Yesterday the Fair Pay Agreements Bill passed its third reading and will shortly receive Royal Assent.  The overarching policy objective attached to the bill is to enable employers and employees to collectively bargain industry-wide or occupation-wide minimum employment terms.  This is because at present, New Zealand’s employment relations and employment standards regulatory system only allows for collective bargaining at an enterprise level (i.e. between individual employers and unions). There is no mechanism for parties to co-ordinate collective bargaining across entire occupations or industries. The bill aims to address this gap.

There is a lot to be said about this bill, and it is fair to say that opponents of the bill have felt the need to carefully measure their response, for fear of being labelled "greedy", "exploitative" or "anti-employment rights".