Simon Bridges: Auckland Business Chamber Chief Executive on business confidence slumping amid oil shock

Remember the outrage over the bureaucrats working from home?

Government comes in and says,

pack your lunch, go back to work.

Problem is, it's not happening.

As you'll know from listening to this show,

ACC is already staged a back down on that.

Now, MB is doing the same.

And to her credit,

Flurfit Simons, the PSA Union, has loyered up

and successfully argued the workers' collective contracts

allowed them to work from home so they should keep it.

Now, the policy to restrict working from home

is heading for the bin, according to MB.

Some ACC staff only have to be in the office two days a week,

the equivalent of a weekend at the office.

Days off or at home are usually,

Fridays and Mondays, quite convenient for them, isn't it?

This is all in spite of the fact that management at ACC

said staff are less productive,

and it's a culture killer.

Now, I don't blame the workers here all the union.

They're exercising their rights, they won it fair and square,

they didn't even have to get to the employment relations authority,

so good on them.

But for anyone who runs a business in the private sector,

or works in one, this sort of stuff makes you a blood boil, doesn't it?

If it's good enough for us, why not them?

Do they really work as much or efficiently at home?

And why was this clause written into their collective contracts

in the first place?

Surely, once they expire,

the next offer of work might just require workers

to actually turn up for work.