The personal grievance provisions of New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employ

admin2022-04-28  30

问题     The personal grievance provisions of New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employee without good cause. Instead, dismissals must be justified. Employers must both show cause and act in a procedurally fair way.
    Personal grievance procedures were designed to guard the jobs of ordinary workers from “unjustified dismissals”. The premise was that the common law of contract lacked sufficient safeguards for workers against arbitrary conduct by management. Long gone are the days when a boss could simply give an employee contractual notice.
    But these provisions create difficulties for businesses when applied to highly paid managers and executives. As countless boards and business owners will attest, constraining firms from firing poorly performing, high-earning managers is a handbrake on boosting productivity and overall performance. The difference between C-grade and A-grade managers may very well be the difference between business success or failure. Between preserving the jobs of ordinary workers or losing them. Yet mediocrity is no longer enough to justify a dismissal.
    Consequently—and paradoxically—laws introduced to protect the jobs of ordinary workers may be placing those jobs at risk.
    If not placing jobs at risk, to the extent employment protection laws constrain business owners from dismissing under-performing managers, those laws act as a constraint on firm productivity and therefore on workers’ wages. Indeed, in “An International Perspective on New Zealand’s Productivity Paradox” (2014), the Productivity Commission singled out the low quality of managerial capabilities as a cause of the country’s poor productivity growth record.
    Nor are highly paid managers themselves immune from the harm caused by the ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures. Because employment protection laws make it costlier to fire an employee, employers are more cautious about hiring new staff. This makes it harder for the marginal manager to gain employment. And firms pay staff less because firms carry the burden of the employment arrangement going wrong.
    Society also suffers from excessive employment protections. Stringent job dismissal regulations adversely affect productivity growth and hamper both prosperity and overall well-being.
    Across the Tasman Sea, Australia deals with the unjustified dismissal paradox by excluding employees earning above a specified “high-income threshold” from the protection of its unfair dismissal laws. In New Zealand, a 2016 private members’ Bill tried to permit firms and high-income employees to contract out of the unjustified dismissal regime. However, the mechanisms proposed were unwieldy and the Bill was voted down following the change in government later that year.
What might be an effect of ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures?

选项 A、Highly paid managers lose their jobs.
B、Employees suffer from salary cuts.
C、Society sees a rise in overall well-being.
D、Employers need to hire new staff.

答案B

解析 本题为细节题。根据题干关键词ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures定位到第六段①句:Nor are highly paid managers themselves immune from the harm caused by the ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures(高薪经理自身也无法免受雇佣关系法中不正当解雇程序所造成的伤害)。该句无法解题,需继续看下文。②③句进一步解释①句,阐述不正当解雇程序对经理的不利影响。④句And之后补充解释不正当解雇程序对于员工的影响,即firms pay staff less because firms carry the burden of the employment arrangement going wrong(企业支付给员工更少的工资,因为企业承担了雇佣安排出差错的责任),B项Employees suffer from salary cuts(员工被降薪)是对④句中firms pay staff less的同义替换。所以本题选B。
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