(PDF) New Zealand Employment Relations
Added on 2021-04-17
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Running head: INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NEW ZEALANDINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NEW ZEALANDName of the student Name of the UniversityAuthor note
1INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NEW ZEALANDPart A1.Development of Employment relations in New Zealand:a) Political views and development:New Zealand’s labour party is a left centred political party primarily focussed on leftwing ideologies. Employment relations in New Zealand have developed over the last centurybased on the legislations enacted by the Labour Party (when in power) and in the present dayencompass a plethora of employee rights. Before the formation of the Labour Party in 1916two bodies represented employee relations and employee grievances these were namely theSocialist Party (1901) and the Independent Political Labour League (1905). These two bodiesconsolidated their various factions later to form what is now known as the Labour Party(Gustafson, 2013). The growth of trade unions in New Zealand predate the formation of theParty and both bodies that preceded it. The development of employees rights through variousTrade Unions though can be traced to events such as the great strike of 1913 and thewaterfront dispute of 1951 (Nolan, 2014). The enactment of Industrial Conciliation andArbitration Act in 1894 was instrumental in providing a forum for reconciliation of employeegrievances and until 1973 continued to be the best possible recourse for employmentdisputes. In 1973 the Third Labour Government enacted the Industrial Relations Act, 1973which superseded the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1894 (Seifert, 2013).b)Social and Economic Factors:The first recorded settlers in New Zealand were the maori who settled these around1000 years ago. With the passage of time Europeans branched out trade routes with NewZealand the first being James Cook an English explorer who was the first to map NewZealand’s coastline to ensure regular trade in 1769 (Ward, 2015). By 1840 New South Waleswas established and New Zealand had become a British Penal Colony. Once colonized
2INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NEW ZEALANDemployment relations were invariably more authoritarian. The world wars subsequently leadto uncertain economic conditions and though New Zealand. However it was during thisperiod that the first Labour Government came into existence and brought in social reforms toindustrial relations (Vowles, 2013). Another important economical development wasfinancial independence from its colonial masters which came in the form of the establishmentof a Reserve Bank in 1934 (Singleton, 2013). Post the world wars and New Zealand’s officialindependence in 1947, it retained its trade relationships with Britain. With the growingpopularity of the Labour Party, the National Party was formed through the consolidation ofthe Reform Party and the United Party, this would be the Labour Party’s primary competitorand would lead to the defeat of the first Labour Government in 1949 (Holt, 2013). This wasmainly due to post war economic and social restraints which appeared to be due to theincompetence of the administration. However, after the First World War there was a globalsocio-economic crisis and it cannot be attributed to any one government’s incompetence. c)Ideologies and theories of the time:Industrial relations or employment relations is primarily interdisciplinary in nature.This fact makes it particularly difficult to devise uniform theories which would define andregulate industrial relations. Resultantly, theoretical pluralism guides the theoreticalperspective in employment relations. The systems theory was the first comprehensive look attheory formulation for industrial relations. This was developed by John Dunlop and wastermed the Industrial Relationship System (Dunlop & Segrave, 2016). This defined industrialrelations as an “analytical subsystem” of industrial societies. This however had limitations tothe extent that it underplayed the role of change and conflict in the system and equated it toan economical system’s logic. The Marxist approach cannot be ignored when discussingindustrial relations. The Marxist approach aimed at defining relationships between thecapitalists and labour markets and providing better working conditions for the labouring
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