The National-led Government has passed the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2025, a law that drags Aotearoa New Zealand’s employment rights backwards and makes exploitation easier for big employers.
“This is one of the most anti-worker pieces of legislation in decades,” says Rachel Mackintosh, E tū National Secretary.
“Rather than building fairer workplaces, this Government has legislated to weaken the rights of workers and embed a new class of low-rights contractors. It is a betrayal of working people.”
The law creates a legal route for employers to treat workers as “specified contractors”, shutting them out of core employment protections – even when they are employees in all but name. That shift directly undermines the hard-fought win by Uber drivers in the Supreme Court, which ruled they were employees and entitled to leave, holiday pay and minimum wage. This Act will hand an advantage back to multinational platforms and other employers who want to exploit people as contractors while reaping the benefits of employee-like work.
“After the Uber drivers fought for their rights and won, this Government has changed the law so employers can sidestep that decision,” Rachel says. “Workers who should be employees will be denied basic entitlements just because a company wants to call them a contractor. That’s a hand-out to big business at the expense of ordinary people.”
The changes go further:
- Workers earning more than $200,000 a year can be dismissed without access to unjustified dismissal personal grievances, creating a two-tier system of rights.
- The “30-day rule” that automatically extends collective agreement terms to new employees is removed, weakening collective bargaining and union strength from day one.
- Personal grievance remedies are narrowed, making it harder for workers to challenge unfair treatment.
“These changes will erode job security and tilt power even further towards employers,” Rachel says.
“This will drive down conditions and make it harder for working people to stand up for fair treatment. This Government promised a fair go for families – instead we get a law that gives bosses more power and leaves workers in the cold.”
E tū warns that the legislation will damage wages and working conditions, and calls on employers to resist using the new powers to undermine workers’ rights.
“Working New Zealanders deserve laws that protect people, not ones that make it easier to cut them adrift,” Rachel says.