The Council of Trade Unions is warning the 90-day rule could be used to discriminate against GLBT employees. Parliament's Industrial Relations Select Committee is hearing submissions on legislation to extend the 90-day trial to cover all workplaces. Radio New Zealand reports the CTU has told the committee there are real fears among GLBT workers about the 90-day trial period. It says even though discrimination on the basis of sexuality is illegal, employers will not have to give a reason for dismissing someone during the trial period. The CTU says people may have hide their sexuality and that would feel like going back to the days before homosexual law reform. Rainbow Wellington is also making a submission to the select committee, a selection of which you can read here: As members of the Committee will be aware discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation is illegal under the Human Rights Act and under section 105 of the Employment Relations Act 2000. This does not mean, however, that there is no discrimination in the workplace on this basis. We have not unusually encountered past cases of such discrimination both on the part of management and of other workers, in the latter case usually in the form of bullying or harassment. We are currently monitoring just such a case involving the Wellington office of a large multi national bank. We are also sensible in the context of this Bill of a recent case in Christchurch with which members of the Committee may be familiar, in which a Christian based and integrated school dismissed a recently appointed teacher on the grounds solely that he was a homosexual, a clear breach of the employment law. Because of the current law he was able to take a personal grievance and was awarded substantial damages. However, under the proposed law change to a universal ninety day probation provision, the school could have dismissed this employee solely on the grounds of his failure to measure up to unspecified requirements and would have not been required to give reasons. The employee would have no access to grievance machinery through the Employment Authority or for that matter any basis for taking such a case if he chose to pursue it through the ordinary courts. We are aware, of course, that workers would still have access to human rights legislation in the event of discrimination short of dismissal, and it therefore seems to us doubly unfortunate that workers would lose that right when it comes to the ultimate employer sanction. In summary, therefore, we consider that this provision opens the door to covert discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and will be so used by the sorts of unscrupulous employers the current law is designed to discourage. We would therefore urge upon the Committee the deletion of this provision from the amendment and its replacement with another provision which restores the right to take a case to personal grievance for those who are employed in smaller enterprises.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 30th September 2010 - 2:11pm