NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand’s main union representing Public Servants has launched a recruitment drive among 325 outsourced call centre workers that the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has under contract from private sector company Madison Recruitment.
National Secretary of the Public Service Association (PSA), Kerry Davies said about 160 of the workers had joined the union “and that is growing every day”.
The IRD drafted in the contractors in November for up to a year to help handle a flood of queries expected from taxpayers about automation and refunds on bills that would result from the next stage of its NZ$1.6 billion (A$1.54 billion) Business Transformation project.
Ms Davies said the union believed the IRD should have employed the workers as staff on fixed-term contracts, given it knew how long they would be needed.
“It is not like they are temps covering for someone who is off sick and it is a genuine casual appointment,” Ms Davies said.
“This is for specific pieces of work for significant periods of time.”
She said the PSA’s goal was to have the workers covered by a collective agreement, “ideally extending the conditions of the IRD collective agreement out to them”.
Ms Davies said the Madison contractors were based at IRD offices, sitting alongside the Department’s 900 call centres employees, and were doing essentially the same work as them but on lower pay.
“We believe if they are doing the same work, they should be getting the same pay, and given the same protections,” she said.
However, spokesperson for the IRD, Baden Campbell said the workers were not doing the full range of work carried out by its permanent staff.
“We are comfortable with the arrangement we have with Madison and are satisfied with the experience Madison staff are having supporting us through a period of peak demand,” Mr Campbell said.
The PSA changed its rules in September to allow it to recruit independent contractors, explaining it was concerned that its members’ working conditions were not undermined by inferior terms offered to contractors driving down working conditions and pay.
Wellington, 17 March 2019
