ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 87, 23 January 1942, Page 5

ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY.

THE REGULATIONS DISLIKED TRADES COUNCIL ALTITUDE (P.A.) AUCKLAND, January 22. Considerable dissatisfaction with the new emergency regulations governing essential industries was expressed at a large and representative meeting of the Auckland Trades Council of the Federation of Labour last night. It was decided to take no part in carrying out the regulations, and to ask for an emergency conference of the federation to endorse a plan for co-operation in the war effort between the workers and the employers by a system of production committees and local councils. These bodies would have equal representation of employers and workers, with a Government appointee as chairman.

“The opinion was general that these regulations are coercive and more calculated to bring about disunity than co-operation in the war effort,” said Mr F. Craig, vice-president of the council, who was chairman. “The meet*ing was unanimously in favour of a united war effort, but took exception to the fact that the regulations have been introduced without any consultation with the rank and file of the industrial Labour movement. It considered that the only result of the regulations will be dissension.” “There are several instances of industries in which prices of commodities are fixed and based on award rates,” said Mr Craig. “Under these emergency regulations, which provide for the elimination of double and treble time, the extra wages normally received by the worker will go into the pocket of the employer. With prices fixed throughout the baking industry is an example of this. “According to the regulations, before a worker can leave his job he has to make application to the authorities. This, in the opinion of the meeting, is a violation of the workers’ fundamental right to sell his labour to the highest bidder. There appear to be ample loopholes in the regulations for employers to use them to their own advantage.

“The tendency would be to reduce wages to the minimum rate,” said Mr Craig. “In the timber industry, key men were at present receiving well over the award rate, but under the regulations an employer would be able to reduce the pay to the award rate. If the dictum of the Judge of the Arbitration Court were to be accepted, it did not appear that there would be a remedy by way of a general order raising wages until after the war.’ The proposal put forward by the federation for production committees was similar to the plan in operation in the United States between organised labour and the Government, said Mr Craig. He understood that that plan worked favourably.