The business lobby groups' negative knee-jerk reaction to the workplace relations policy Labour announced last week was predictable, but facile. "They would mean less flexibility for companies to innovate and pay productive workers more," declared Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope. Labour says negotiations on fair pay agreements will begin once a sufficient percentage of employers or employees within an industry call for one. Tellingly, since the deregulation of the labour market a quarter century ago, real wages have grown more slowly than labour productivity (output per hour worked). These sorts of active labour market policies are essential, Robertson argues, if New Zealand is to seize the opportunities, and manage the risks, of the rapidly changing world of work.

Source: New Zealand Herald July 06, 2017 03:56 UTC