Breaks law ‘flawed’, says NDU co-ordinator

Workers and unions should be worried by new laws that give workers guaranteed breaks, says the National Distribution Union’s national co-ordinator for The Warehouse, Simon Oosterman.
The Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Act requires employers to give workers a 10-minute rest break for up to four hours of paid employment, as well as an additional unpaid half-hour break for more than four hours.
Oosterman says while unions are of course in favour of workers having regular breaks, the amendment is “flawed”.
“The solution is simply to take the half hour break at the end, but the legislation says the break has to be taken within the work period.
“We are hoping workers will be able to stay for half an hour at the end of the day, but who wants to do that? What if they have children to pick up?” he says.
According to Oosterman, employers may put pressure on their employees not to take the break at all, and he knows of occasions when this has happened.
A spokesman for Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson says in an email that employees and employers can agree to the timing of the breaks.
“Where such agreement cannot be reached however, the rest and meal breaks must be evenly spread throughout the work period where reasonable and practicable.
“The timing of rest and meal breaks is flexible and can follow any arrangement agreed between employer and employee,” the spokesman says.
He says employers and employees are free to agree to additional entitlements to rest and meal breaks — either paid or unpaid.
The new provisions will not affect existing agreements that provide for additional paid or unpaid rest breaks and meal breaks.
The amendment was introduced to Parliament last year by the then-Labour Government and is due to come into effect on April 1.