National to ban gypsies from workplace

The Government will announce sweeping changes to labour laws at the National Party conference including extending the right to banish gypsies from all New Zealand companies.

Under current law only small businesses may cast out gypsies, a nomadic people also known as the Romani but soon the ban will extend to all workplaces. New Zealand business leaders have applauded the move which is expected to prove popular with National supporters and donors as they meet in Auckland this weekend.

Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson has said the move will empower business owners to deal with gypsy magic such as possession, shapeshifting and decreasing shareholder dividends in a reasonable and forthright manner.

‘We have no statistical data on the impact of gypsies on economic growth but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Yesterday I met with representatives of a major New Zealand exporting company. Like most responsible businesses they responded to the global financial crisis by dismissing their workers and increasing executive compensation but far from increasing profits this company suffered a serious decline in productivity and earnings.’

‘The problem was traced back to a gypsy potion in the water supply but without a proper legal framework in place to deal with gypsy related mischief employers are powerless.’

‘The challenge for New Zealand business is to improve our low productivity,’ said Business New Zealand spokesman Phil O’Reilly who applauds the proposed changes. ‘If a gypsy looks at a company director’s shadow then productivity can fall by as much as 30%. Most Kiwi managers know you can counteract the curse if your executive board drowns a white cat but these processes have a serious cost in terms of board time and shopping around the pet stores to find another cat that looks like your kids’ one.’

The flood of qualified New Zealand workers moving to Australia is also a serious issue and this has prompted National’s changes to employment law, granting employers the right to interrogate their staff as to whether they are gypsies and instantly dismiss them on suspicion of using gypsy magic to lower worker morale.

According to Treasury studies gypsies are unable to feel pain and the joint Treasury-Department of Labour taskforce into Gypsy related sorcery and sabotage recommends that Human Resource departments use long thin silver pins when determining an employee’s gypsy-quotient.

Unions and employment lawyers have criticised the proposed changes claiming they are an excuse to avoid dealing with the serious issues facing the workforce such as low wages and high unemployment. A recent OECD  study was more direct, blaming New Zealand’s poor economic performance on an ignorant and gullible management culture that showed poor management skills, lack of strategic planning and a tendency to blame the problems caused by these shortcomings on absurd external factors. Mr O’Reilly agreed with the assessment.

‘If you hear a gypsy singing at night they can enter your dreams and steal your strategic plans,’ he said. Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds agreed, citing major gypsy-related network outages that crippled the Telecom XT mobile network even though his company dismissed most of their engineers and increased executive bonuses.

‘You make all the right decisions and then gypsies trick you into underfunding infrastructure and cast a curse on your radio network controller. That’s the tragedy of New Zealand business.’