Keep the fire on sick leave during recovery, says Business NZ

Business NZ says there are reasons to increase worker sickness, but not as companies struggle to survive the Covid-19 recession.

Labor has pledged to increase the right to sick leave for workers from five to 10 days, and Kirk Hope, Executive Director of Business NZ, said: “There is a case for an additional sick leave.”

But, he said, “It would be a useful conversation to have at some point in the future.”

The country is in a deep recession after a 12.2 percent contraction in economic activity in the three months to the end of June.

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Hope said that Labor’s proposed additional sick leave entitlement multiplied by the minimum wage added up to a potential cost of $ 2 billion a year for businesses.

“It’s a pretty big number,” he said.

Hope said some of Labor’s other industrial relations policies, including changes to collective bargaining laws and raising the minimum wage, were best discussed in “normal times.”

“These times are pretty far from normal,” he said.

Overall, employers supported their workers and handled sick leave well during the Covid pandemic, Hope said.

“There would be cases where people were not caring for their employees the way they should, but in general companies are trying to adapt to disease problems because this is a high risk environment,” he said.

Many companies were having a very difficult time, especially in Auckland, Hope said.

That was backed up by a recent survey by insurer giant Suncorp of its New Zealand clients.

Claire Sutton, executive director of customer awareness and culture at Suncorp, said that on average about 26 percent of people “reported” as financially vulnerable during the months since Covid-19 hit the country, compared to around 18 percent. percent before Covid -19.

“That has increased by 7-8 percent compared to before Covid,” he said.

Business owners were twice as likely to be affected by the financial vulnerability of the home as their other customers, Sutton said.

National labor relations spokesman Dan Bidois said: “I can’t believe how disconnected Labor is from small businesses right now. They are suffering “.

“I was in Ponsonby the other day and I spoke to three or four retail businesses that were closing. This is left to right and center in my Northcote constituency, and these guys want to go and add more costs to the business right now, and it’s just ridiculous. “

“This government believes it has the continued ability to pay, be it an additional holiday for Matariki, more days off due to sickness, an increase in the minimum wage. Most of the small businesses I talk to struggle, ”Bidois said.

“They are not beating it. They earn enough to survive, pay their staff, pay their bills, and a little to go home, and that’s it, ”Bidois said.

Bidois supported companies that chose to give their workers more sick leave, but said: “We don’t think that legislating for more sick days is something they need at this point.”

ACT leader David Seymour said: “You have to cut the goose that lays the golden eggs, and then twist its neck and suffocate it, which is what this would do for job creation.”

It was particularly destructive at this time when the economy needed to recover, he said.