New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations

Gendering employment law in the wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Annick Masselot — 2023-12-12

It has been three years since Aotearoa | New Zealand experienced its first nationwide lockdown in response to the global outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Challenges stemming from the pandemic have been far reaching and pervasive as well as particularly severe in the employment context. Less than a year into the pandemic, Maria Hayes and I published a gender sensitive analysis of some of these challenges, outlining the disproportionate gender impact of various measures adopted to meet the disease.1 Our article showed that, at least in the early days of the pandemic, a raft of gendered inequalities appeared in relation to occupational health and safety risks; the value of care; unemployment; old age; and violence and abuse. Our analysis, moreover, concurred with that of Matthew Scobie and Anna Sturman,2 in that it revealed an intersectional negative disproportionate effect on Māori and Pasifika women.
Overall, while the Aotearoa | New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic was largely effective in containing the outbreak until the vaccine rollout could be implemented, we found that its policy response distinctly lacked gender analysis which, in turn, contributed to widening the gender equality gap.3 We argued that the Covid-19 pandemic represented a crucial juncture and an opportunity for rethinking accepted labour standards and concepts under a gender lens. Based on our analytical reflections, we invited reflections on the relation between the economy and employment law and, in particular, we supported the reassessment of the value of work with a view to include production on an equal basis with reproduction.

Voices from the ‘Margins’ of a Pandemic: Impact of a Lack of Employee Voice on Health and Safety for Community Support Workers During COVID-19

Fiona Hurd — 2023-10-27

In the context of a community-based participatory project, we interviewed 84 community support workers to explore their experiences through the Covid-19 pandemic, Participants highlighted significant WHS concerns that either arose during, or were heightened due to, the pandemic working conditions. Participants detailed their efforts to activate employee voice mechanisms across the ‘staircase of voice’ (Wilkinson, 2010). However, despite significant efforts to employ these mechanisms, participants’ messages were not received. This reinforces the importance of both workplace and societal conditions that support both the delivery and receiving of employee voice messages (Romney, 2021). Within the context of significant gendered regimes and poor societal perceptions of carework, the effectiveness of voice mechanisms was diminished, leading to significant erosion of WHS conditions.

“Good faith in the time of Covid-19”: Key Legal Developments 2020-2022

Amanda Reilly — 2022-11-21

This article discusses some key legal developments related to Covid-19 and employment law. As will be seen, some legal issues which arose were specific to the circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic while others raise more broadly applicable questions which are yet to be resolved. One very clear thread that emerges is that the need for employers to consult and engage with employees in good faith was not negated by the fact of a public health crisis and national state of emergency.

The key legal issues that arose can conveniently be divided under two headings: those related to the economic impact of Covid-19 and those related to vaccination requirements.

The evolving role of the Employment Relations Authority Te Ratonga Ahumana Taimahi in the age of pandemia

Andrew Dallas — 2023-07-04

The Employment Relations Authority Te Ratonga Ahumana Taimahi (Authority) is the principal adjudicative institution in Aotearoa New Zealand’s employment jurisdiction. This article, which is written from a participant/observer perspective, examines how the Authority, which operates as an “investigatory” rather than a more traditional adversarial tribunal, responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and considers and evaluates what lessons might be learned. It also reflects on the future of the Authority’s expanded collectivist jurisdiction within the context of pandemia and structural economic change.

Job Demands and Resources Predict Flourishing and Turnover Intentions

Ceara Nicolls — 2024-04-17

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model suggests that job resources can buffer the detrimental effects of job demands. This remains untested in New Zealand within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic leaving researchers to question the importance of resources and whether the pandemic’s impact means that job demands are not as easily buffered. In this study, we test a moderated mediation model with job demands predicting turnover intentions, flourishing as a mediator and job resources buffering. Using data collected across eight New Zealand organisations in 2021 (N=934), the current study supports the necessity for organisations to take stock of the risk factors associated with job-related demands, and work to provide employees with necessary psychosocial job resources to buffer their effect on flourishing and turnover.

Redundancy with dignity – Give it to me straight

Wayne Macpherson — 2023-09-01

In times of crisis, organisations implement cost-cutting measures, including retrenchment. Research on employee redundancy often focuses on the processes performed by organisations. This paper, however, reports on the expectations of New Zealand and Australian employees (n=613) during the later stages of the pandemic-lockdown environment, circa late 2021, regarding their organisation’s messaging of imminent redundancy. Employees in both countries indicated that they seek dignity and directness, and to be told face-to-face by their immediate line manager, senior line manager, or CEO that they are being “made redundant”. Interestingly, being told by Human Resources personnel was a least favoured option. This research informs organisations of their organisational justice and corporate social responsibilities in times of retrenchment.

Employee attitudes towards workplace ethics during the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand

Karin Lasthuizen — 2022-12-13

This research note uses national survey evidence collected in May 2021 to explore the views and attitudes of employees in Aotearoa New Zealand towards workplace ethics. We compare these findings with data from a previous Ethics at Work employee survey in 2018 to highlight key trends in workplace ethics over time. Results show several improvements over time but also some areas of concern. To show how New Zealand employees have responded during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 results from Australian employees – as well as the 2021 global results of employees from 13 countries which include both New Zealand and Australia – are also presented. Our findings are discussed through a moral economy framework, which positions employment as a relationship with significant dependencies and mutualities between labour and capital. Importantly, this relationship is intended to enhance human and societal flourishing. We conclude that this framework provides an opportunity to rethink how employment relations in Aotearoa New Zealand might be understood and practised.

Discourses of Deservingness in the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment

Peter Skilling — 2022-12-07

This article presents an analysis of the Covid-19 Income Relief Payment (CIRP) scheme that was instituted for a limited time in 2020 to support those who had lost their income as a result of the pandemic. More specifically, it analyses the ways in which CIRP recipients were discursively constructed as deserving of a higher level of support (albeit for a limited time) than that available for other unemployed people and other welfare recipients. To this end, this article conducts a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of relevant policy documents, parliamentary debates and media coverage to assess how key actors constructed the deservingness of CIRP recipients, as well as how these constructions were contested by other groups. While the CIRP was positioned as a short-lived response to an exceptional event, the design and the discourses of this scheme reveal how policymakers understand the deservingness of different groups of New Zealanders. It is important to understand these discourses of deservingness, especially as the architects of the CIRP scheme linked it to the development of a permanent scheme for supporting displaced workers.