The Good-Faith Obligation : An Effective Model for Promoting Voice?

Historically worker voice in New Zealand was supported by the state through the arbitration system, support that was lost in the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s when employment law became individualized and increasingly dominated by the common law. A decade later an attempt to recreate effective worker voice through a comprehensive statutory duty of good faith applying to all aspects of employment relationships had only a limited impact in the face of an entrenched unitary perspective of the employment relationship. To overcome this hostility stronger mechanisms through which worker voice can be expressed are required and must be accompanied by a higher cost for non-compliance. Such reforms are, however, unlikely unless the state again accepts that promoting the employment and economic interests of workers, including providing them with a strong and effective voice in employment, is a legitimate role for a state committed to social democracy