Low paid workers are definately going to suffer under this scheme.Since National has been in, our real net wages have gone down. Remember the con they had placed on workers where they would give you a subsidy should you agree to reduce your work hours providing managers do the same?The opposite happened, workers got less, managers got an increase. Now cashing in your holidays is a net 2% increase in salary, not near enough the rate of inflation.Should you get sick, will you get help? Most likely not.
No.
'Voluntary?' We all know that there would be pressure to 'sell' the week of leave and companies are already compensating by reducing wages of new employees. Workers need and are entitled to time off and this must not change. Protect your rights and join your Union!
I think to have an option to cash in leave is a good idea. It provides flexibility, allowing those who want the time off (especially parents during school holidays) to have it and those who prefer to take the money and spend it to do so. It has been sold as a choice and not compulsary so I don't understand why people feel they are hard done by or are being forced to do something. I agree it should only be 1 week though so people can take a well needed break.
Of course it should be an option, better still why not revert back to 3 weeks holiday as before. When will employees consider thier employer and once in a while say "thanks for giving me a job". 10 days Stat and 4 weeks holidays is crippling for most small to medium sized companies.
It is not a "swap". The allure of extra "money" is misleading. Realistically, this scheme is a denial of the basic human right of employees to experience work-life balance; as well as a denial of the basic human right of employers to enable this experience.
You know it is all just another way to screw the worker!!! Everything is going up in price but what about our wages are they going up to conpensate (I don;'t think so). How about all politicians leave government for a couple of months and work for average wages that normal hard workers live on and see how well they cope!!!!~ Yeah they wouldn't cope at all it is time they all got their heads out of the sand and lived like 90% of the country and see how long they last.... They wouldn't last 5 dam minutes it all good for them to sit back on their HUGE wages and say everything is fine.. Bet none of them have ever struggled to pay a power bill or struggled to buy food to feed their family.....etc.. Oh to be in parliment living the high life!!!!
If ya wanna cash it in go for it, good idea, I got 320 hrs. What pisses me off is the change where your annual leave is based on 8% of your gross earnings WITHOUT overtime taken into it. That will suck arse.
Of course I would take it if it was available. Especially I would like to save it up for about 10 years, and then it would be a really great chunk of money. I had a friend do that while in bankruptcy - came out with a nice little bundle of cash. But I disagree with it, as people really do need their holidays.
I had a bad work accident some years ago and am now on permanent ACC which means I am only on 80% of what I used to earn. However, I still manage a small management job for a few hours each day and the earnings from this is duly returned in part to ACC. I don't mind that as I am still able to keep myself occupied and at least the brain is still working. However, if I was to cash up my holidays they would be eroded by 80% back to ACC. No, I too still need some time to relax and have a spell, and we are all better for it by far.
If all the staff whom work for the company I work for, cashed in most their holidays. The company would be forced to lay one of us of. We are only a small company with 8 staff, all staff on very good wages and benefits, our turnover is only small, but they have managed to keep every one of us employed for over 10 years, for our company to find the extra revenue to pay-out for these holidays they would be forced to do what they have tried not to do through this recession where our business income has dropped by half, lay one of us of. Our employer always encouraged us to have our time off, we can spent 8-10 hours sitting at a computer every day. For the good of our health, they believe we need decent time away from computer and a chance to get some sunlight. So no I don't think this is a good idea for either staff or employers, it could harm a lot of small companies that already pay out approx 8 weeks leave entitlements per staff, especially when all those staff are on top wages.
