Q&A with the Aotearoa Legal Workers' Union
BY KATE MACDONALD
As the name suggests, the Aotearoa Legal Workers’ Union (ALWU) is a union for those working in the legal profession in New Zealand. ALWU officially launched in May this year. I spoke to newly elected Co-President Morgan Evans to find out more about the union, what they do, what it means to be part of ALWU and where they’re headed.
Kate: Why did ALWU start? Why did you see a need for ALWU to exist?
Morgan: There are a number of systemic issues that have existed within the legal profession for a very long time, some of which are a consequence of the way that we work and the structure of the organisations that we work in, and some of which are a legacy of misogyny and other aspects of our culture more broadly which have manifested particularly strongly in the legal profession.
An example of those issues manifesting in the legal profession is the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault at law firms, which was brought into the public consciousness as a result of what happened at Russell McVeagh in the summer of 2015 / 2016. That was a catalyst for some very important and long overdue conversations about that particular aspect of the culture of the profession to begin. The failure of the firm, the Law Society or any other existing institution to step up and address what had occurred also showed that there was something missing in the profession: a place where people who were being mistreated in their workplaces could go for support and assistance.
ALWU is hoping to provide support and advocacy for vulnerable legal workers, and to tap into some of the momentum created by the conversations that have been occurring to drive a broader discussion about cultural issues in the profession. Since the Russell McVeagh story broke, lots of firms have changed their HR policies around bullying and sexual harassment. That’s a great start, but it isn’t enough: ALWU wants to take things one step further, shine the light on some of the other systemic issues that exist in the profession and keep the change coming.[1]
What do ALWU do?
ALWU’s purpose is to provide support to and advocate for workers in the legal profession. Broadly, its aims are to improve pay and working conditions for legal workers – which includes, lawyers, administrative staff and other workers whose jobs interact with the law. ALWU wants to improve the consistency of working conditions across all legal workplaces and hold employers accountable to providing positive work environments.
The primary role of a union is as a safety net for members, ensuring that they have somewhere to turn if they encounter difficulties in their workplaces. ALWU acts as an intermediary between members and their employers, and can arrange representation for members having employment issues.
ALWU also runs campaigns on key issues for legal workers. Its initial key priorities are achieving minimum wage compliance, improving representation and diversity in firms - particularly when it comes to decision-making bodies - and following up on [anti-]bullying and harassment changes within firms. In working towards those goals, ALWU has, among other things, met with each of New Zealand’s 15 largest law firms a number of times, gathered information on working conditions in a profession-wide survey, and driven a number of news stories to expose poor working conditions for legal workers.
There is a lot more to come: as well as continuing to advocate for individual legal workers in their workplaces where they encounter issues, ALWU will be publishing a report on its survey findings, releasing best practice policies for minimum standards compliance, publishing report cards on firms’ culture change performance and popping up at your next university recruitment event to provide an employee perspective to students.[2]
What is the Minimum Wage Campaign?
In order to advocate for its members, ALWU runs campaigns that specifically address issues of concern for legal workers. ALWU’s first campaign is the Minimum Wage Campaign. The campaign aims to ensure that legal workers are paid at least the minimum wage for the time that they work.
ALWU started with the Minimum Wage Campaign because it is a minimum statutory requirement: firms must comply with it. Ensuring compliance means:
Ensuring that employees understand what “work” is – ie, whether you are sending work emails late at night, having a cup of tea at work during the day or sitting at your desk waiting for your partner to give you a task, you are working.
Keeping accurate time records. Employers need to have records of the time that their employees are actually spending at work – not just the hours that they are billing to clients.
Paying employees at least minimum wage for the hours that they actually work. Again, that means any hours that they work and not just billable hours.
Not only will the Minimum Wage Campaign ensure that employees are properly paid, it also serves as a vehicle for getting firms to properly record employees’ time. ALWU hopes that will spur on more conversations about the impact that working long hours has on employees’ mental health and provide trigger points for intervention when employees are working ridiculous hours.
The Minimum Wage Campaign is already bearing fruit: following discussions with ALWU, almost all of New Zealand’s largest law firms have now looked back through their time records and paid people top up payments where they have identified that they have worked for less than minimum wage.
In case you are thinking that minimum wage compliance can’t be a big thing for lawyers:
Working excessive overtime is commonplace in the legal industry. For graduates and young lawyers on starting salaries, it doesn’t take much overtime to be working for less than minimum wage. If you are on an average graduate salary of approximately $46,000, you would only need to work 50 hours a week, or 10 hours overtime, for a fortnight to be in breach of the Act.[3]
Sadly, most graduate lawyers will be doing that at least once in their first year – if not many times ALWU ran an Employment Information Survey, to which it received 204 responses across more than 40 workplaces. Survey respondents were shown a table outlining how many hours someone on salaries ranging from $40,000-70,000 would have to work to be paid less than the minimum wage. 28% of respondents said they had worked for less than minimum wage and an additional 14% said they thought they had. The problem is worse in large law firms (more than 25 partners); 51% of respondents from large law firms said they had or thought they had worked for less than minimum wage.[4]
To drive long-term change in the way law firms think about providing employees with minimum entitlements like the minimum wage, ALWU has developed a best practice model for minimum wage compliance and entitlements. The policy makes it clear that having a cup of tea, going to the bathroom and talking to a colleague in the corridor are not strictly billable work, but they are part of work – you are at work and those things should be included in the picture of what work looks like. It also requires firms to introduce systems for accurate time recording.
There are a lot of cultural issues that make it difficult for people to accurately record their time. Often an employee will feel pressure to go under budget or won’t want to properly record how much time they actually spent on something because then questions might be asked about why it took so long, so underreporting happens. As part of its best practice policy, ALWU is suggesting that an interim ‘clock in-clock out’ system could help to take the pressure off of employees and would go towards more accurate time recording, creating a situation where people’s real hours worked are being acknowledged and those employees who need to be looked after can be.[5]
Source: ALWU, https://alwu.org.nz/minimum-wage/.
Has there ever been a legal union in NZ before?
Yes. There was the Clerical Workers’ Union which covered lawyers. The members in the early 1980s conducted a strike and got a fairly significant pay rise (we’re talking almost doubling their pay!). Sadly, the union was disbanded when compulsory unionisation was ended. However a number of people who were involved in the Clerical Workers’ Union have gone on to be partners and judges and QCs, so there is precedent for this happening in the profession and it, and the people involved in it, being successful.[6]
How many members does ALWU have at the moment and where are they based?
ALWU has over 615 members nationwide. Most members are based in Auckland and Wellington, but there are a growing number of members down south and even some in the far north. Because ALWU is just starting out, it is still working on growing its profile in the regions. However, having members from all over the country is a great sign that people throughout the profession understand that there is a need to talk about the issues it is facing and have a body to hold employers to account.[7]
Who can become a member of ALWU?
Any legal worker, not just lawyers. Legal worker broadly construed includes anyone who has a tangential relationship with the law. ALWU framed it this way because it is important for a union to be inclusive and it wants to be able to represent a diverse range of employees including, for example, court staff, administration staff and people who work for the Ministry of Justice.
There is also student membership available.[8] Student membership is a little bit different because students don’t necessarily have legal employer. But the idea is that students need a voice in this space because it is today’s students who in a couple of years will be junior lawyers and will be most affected by the issues we are talking about at the moment. ALWU thinks it’s really important that students have a role in driving change in the culture of the profession because ultimately it’s students who stand to benefit but also suffer if current cultural practices don’t change. We know how hard students work to even get the chance to work at a law firm and be part of a prestigious profession, so we want to make sure that when they actually get there it does live up to the hype and all the hard work has been worth it.[9]
What does membership involve? What does it look like?
Membership can look however you like - it really depends on how much you want to engage. Membership of ALWU is free and totally confidential, so you can join up and lend your voice to the cause without anyone ever knowing that you have done so. If you do want to get more involved, however, there are a number of ways to do it.
ALWU is currently in the process of looking for delegates at individual firms who will drive change on a firm by firm, office by office basis. Macro level change is important but smaller micro level change like the change that delegates can make in their own offices is vital for shifting culture too. So, if members want to help in that way that’s an option.
Members will all hopefully see the benefits of ALWU’s three campaigns– minimum wage compliance, increasing representation and diversity, and a follow up on bullying and harassment.
ALWU also works with members on an individual basis if need be. If a member has an issue at work, ALWU has a group of senior practitioners who can be contacted and offer help. A member can also contact their union delegate or a member of the ALWU executive with individual issues.[10]
What have firms’ responses to ALWU been? Has it been all positive or have you had some negative responses?
The response has been largely positive. We’ve had some really great conversations and have been pleasantly surprised with firms’ willingness to take a whole range of steps. In particular, we’ve had a lot of firms go back and check time records and remuneration policies and take steps to ensure that they are remunerating staff in accordance with the Minimum Wage Act.
In saying that, there are definitely some firms who take one of two stances: a) we don’t have a problem, our staff are all very happy, or b) our clients come first, and this is just what the legal profession is like. So, the response has been nuanced but largely positive and constructive and it is great to see firms respecting the union as a voice for employees and being willing to engage with ALWU.[11]
To find out more information or get involved with the ALWU and their campaigns, visit the ALWU’s website at https://alwu.org.nz/.
The views expressed in the posts and comments of this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the Equal Justice Project. They should be understood as the personal opinions of the author. No information on this blog will be understood as official. The Equal Justice Project makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The Equal Justice Project will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information.
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[1] Interview with Morgan Evans, ALWU Co-President (the author, Auckland and Wellington, 13 September 2019) transcript provided by Kate Macdonald (Auckland).
[2] Evans, above n 1.
[3] ALWU “ALWU Newsletter, August 2019, Issue 2” (newsletter, August 2019).
[4] ALWU, above n 3.
[5] Evans, above n 1.
[6] Evans, above n 1.
[7] Evans, above n 1.
[8] ALWU, above n 3.
[9] Evans, above n 1.
[10] Evans, above n 1.
[11] Evans, above n 1.