The government will amend legislation to address problems over statutory meal breaks.
The amendment was prompted after the Airline Pilots Association and the Airways Corporation couldn’t reach agreement over flexible breaks at regional airports. This could have meant the closure of control towers with disruption to flights.
Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said airports were not the only one which had problems.
“Pharmacies, schools, meat works and sole attendant operations such as petrol stations have also all raised concerns on how to implement the law.
“Parliament certainly didn’t intend for this law to create more problems than it solved.
“It would appear what was common sense in the past is no longer common sense under this legislation. The law is obviously too prescriptive to be workable and needs clarifying.
Several months ago Frenemy highlighted the advice from the Department of Labour on this legislation, which was introduced by Labour.
So what we have here is a law that is a complete and utter waste of time money and effort. The use of words and phrases such as “intent” “might” “level of connection” “it is best” are how the poor buggers in the DOL are describing the law and its implications. These people have been handed a hospital pass of the first order, as they will have to field calls from employers and employees who want to know whether the existing arrangements meet the requirements of this example of parliamentary ineptitude.
I haven’t heard of any problems on farms but I suspect that is because the law has been ignored common sense has been applied. It must be easier to do that in paddocks than at airports, pharmacies, schools, meat works and petrol stations.
Homepaddock 
As an employment lawyer, I am dealing on a weekly basis on how to operate a business and how to apply the letter of this unnecessary law. We are resolving it most of the time by clients doing what ‘they think is best’. That is another way of saying doing exactly what they did before because it works for both the employer and the employees concerned. One example of this is where employees want to leave early on Fridays and work straight through following the lunch break and not taking afternoon ‘smoko’ ( what a quaint old expression). A no-no under the legislation… but tell the employees that!
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Another example of stupid rules written and promulgated by people with absolutely no comprehension of the reality of providing service or managing the delivery of that service. Some of the rules around road transport come to mind, such as the rules of what constitutes duty time. For example the time spent sleeping for up to 3 1/2 hours on Cook strait or loading and unloading at depots when the vehicle is not under direct control of the driver but the rules say otherwise. More realistic attitudes and flexibility must be good.
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