Legal requirements
Several laws cover how a job can be offered.
The Human Rights Act applies to job advertisements, application
forms, interviews and job offers.
In most cases, jobs must be open to anyone, whatever their colour,
race, ethnic or national origins, disability, sex (including pregnancy
or childbirth status), marital or family status, age, religious or
ethical belief, political opinion, employment status, or sexual orientation.
Generally, none of these reasons should be the basis for offering
different terms and conditions or fringe benefits to different applicants.
The Human Rights Commission deals
with complaints under the Human Rights Act.
The Employment Relations Act says that jobs cannot be withheld from
anyone because they do, or do not, belong to a union. Employers may
not offer different terms and conditions of work to different applicants
because they are, or are not, members of a union. Breaches of
these sections of the Act can be resolved through mediation assistance
or taken to the Employment Relations Authority.
It is an offence under the Fair Trading Act to act in a misleading
or deceptive way in advertising or offering employment. For instance,
an employer must not make misleading statements about the type of
work, work conditions, rates of pay and promotion prospects.
Complaints can be taken to the Commerce
Commission.
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Minimum rights in legislation
Employers and employees need to be aware that various pieces of
legislation set minimum
pay, holidays, leave and other rights.
Employers and employees may agree to terms that are more than the
legislative minimum. They may not agree to terms that are less.
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This page was last
updated on:
04-Sep-2009
and is current. |
