Those of you who work shifts or organise them will need to understand recent changes made to the Employment Relations Act.
There is now a specific provision relating to the “cancellation of shifts”.
Last year a full bench of the Employment Court released a decision which fundamentally changed the landscape of some 27,000 relief carers in New Zealand. As things stood prior to the decision this significant work force had no employment rights and received what can only be described as inadequate compensation for the work they did. For example providing relief care for a full 24 hour period gleaned a relief carer a mere $75.00 from the Carer Support Scheme Fund; which itself is financed by the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards. That equates to approximately $3.00 an hour; well below the minimum wage.
The Rio Olympics ended up being one of our most successful Olympics ever. But for a time it looked like it was going to go pear-shaped. From the moment we woke up to learn our men’s sevens team had lost to Japan (most of us not getting up to watch the game given we were a shoo-in) we all started to get that ominous sinking feeling that things were not going to pan out quite as expected. Thankfully some of our less favoured athletes managed to ensure we came home strongly and our final medal count saw us end up in a very respectable overall position.