Minister Brooke van Velden says sick leave cuts for part-timers is what businesses want
Photo:
RNZ / Reece Baker
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says the possible
sick leave cuts for part-time employees
is something business owners want.
At the moment everyone gets 10 paid days a year.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said earlier that she was looking at changes that would make leave proportionate to the number of hours worked.
She told
Checkpoint
it was not a new idea, and she had been looking at sick leave changes alongside ongoing work to replace the Holidays Act.
"I have been working away behind the scenes for about the last six months now trying to work out technical details to replace this act."
When asked if it would be based on hours or days she said she could not say as cabinet had not signed off on how the changes would work.
"This is something that businesses do want, they want that proportionate leave... some companies that work with part-time workers have quite a few part-time workers, you know, like a cafe or small retail shops and that's a lot of sick leave they are on the hook for."
Van Velden did not give evidence on how much sick leave part-timers were taking.
"That's not the reason behind doing this change," she said.
"It's to do with whether it's right, and is it right that someone who is working one day a week is entitled to the same sick leave allocation as someone who works five days a week - that's what we are basing this policy on, whether it's right."
She said she believed someone who worked "what we expect to be a full week", would have the full entitlement this included someone who worked 40 hours in four days.
When asked about how the change may disproportionately impact women -
more women than men are in part-time jobs
- she said it had nothing to do with gender.
"If we want true gender equality we have to stop with this disingenuous argument that women are the ones who will be losing out because woman are the ones expected to do childcare."
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told
Morning Report
earlier he knew it was something Minister Brooke van Velden was looking into.
"She looks at a whole raft of workplace relations," Luxon said.
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