The government’s employment relations amendment bill, which aims to take away many employment rights from workers, passed its third and final reading in parliament this week.

The new law means that the 90-day trial period for new employees has been extended to all workplaces. It also removes reinstatement as the primary remedy for unfair dismissal, makes it easier for employers to fire workers without following the proper process, and reduces the right of workers to meet their own union at their workplace.

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly said unions are not sitting back in defeat.

“We will continue to campaign against this government’s attack on work rights and its continuing failure to take adequate action against unemployment.”

“There are 150,000 New Zealanders officially unemployed, yet the Government’s response is to weaken everyone else’s job security as though that was the root of the country’s economic problems,” Ms Kelly said.

“It seeks to weaken wage bargaining when our wages are falling further and further behind Australia’s.”

The government also passed changes to the Holidays Act, which now means that one week of annual leave can be bought back by employers from workers.

It also means that employers can now require a doctor’s certificate for even one day’s absence. Until now an employer was supposed to have reasonable grounds for believing a worker’s sickness was not genuine if a sick note was to be required in the first two days of illness.