Collective Employment Contracts and New Working Time Arrangements in New Zealand

The research reported in this paper examines the impact in New Zealand of the liberalisation of the statutory regulation on working time in collective employment contract bargaining. Specifically this research reports working time arrangements that are changed in three areas. First the reduction (or extension) of the working week - thus decreasing (or increasing) the number of hours worked by full time workers. Second, the scheduling of the hours worked each week by full time workers. Here changes to the span of days available (and whether that span includes weekend days) and the span of hours available for ordinary work each day have been identified. Third, the application of overtime payments and the specific overtime rate has been examined