So it is okay for Greens to sack without cause, but not other employers?

Stuff reports:

“We haven't renewed Ken's contract,” said Shaw, who replaced at co-leader at the end of May. “We offered the contract to Andrew, who's accepted it”.

So let's be clear. They had an employee who wanted to carry on. He was not incompetent at his job. He had been there eight years. They didn't sack him for incompetence or misconduct – they just decided to choose someone else who they thought would be better.

Now think if any other employer did that? Greens (and ) insist that employees not even be given a 90 day trial. They say that once an employee is hired, they must be kept in a job indefinitely, unless the position is made redundant, or they are sacked for incompetence or misconduct. They would kick up a stink if some other employer kicked someone to the kerb, simply because they had found someone better to take their place.

Legally they can do so, because Parliament has special contracts that give employees almost no rights. Their contracts expire when  ever there is a change of leader, MP or an election. And even worse they can dump you at any time if they merely decide you are no longer compatible. They oppose any other employer in NZ having those rights, but happily will use them for themselves.

Many staff in Parliament and the Beehive have “events based” contracts, which come with little job security, but a likely three month redundancy payout on termination.

However, this does not cover staff employed in the various leaders' offices, meaning Spagnolo faced leaving with no redundancy.

Shaw said that the Green Party's saw the situation as unfair and so would put their hands in their pockets to cover the cost.

“There are some staff that get a redundancy payment and some don't depending on what budget they're on,” Shaw said.

“We…choose to match that so that our staff are treated fairly no matter which category they are under”.

The move means MPs “take the hit on that ourselves”, he said.

Now that is a decent thing to do, and good on them. But it doesn't mean they escape the underlying hypocrisy of dumping a long serving staffer who wanted to stay on, just because they felt someone else could do a better job.

I'm not against that. My point is why are they opposed to all other employers being able to do the same?

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