"TAKE THE OFFENSIVE."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 204, 29 August 1928, Page 8

"TAKE THE OFFENSIVE."

EMPLOYERS' TEMPTATION. REASONS FOR HESITATION. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The possibility of the employers abandoning their usual attitude of passive resistance and taking the offensive when industrial disputes occur, was mentioned by Mr. A. M. Burns, acting-president of the Canterbury Employers' Association, at the annual meeting. "One can scarcely hope," said Mr. Burns, "that workers' organisations are or ever will be satisfied with what they have managed to secure, but it seems fair to conclude that the unions have in many cases realised that a time of trade depression is not opportune for demands for further concessions in wages and conditions. It is true that in some cases unions have refused to recognise any factors other than their own desires, and it is a question as to whether the employers should not in such cases take the offensive and file claims embodying conditions less restrictive to enterprise. There is a large body of opinion which believes that the only hope the employers have of ever securing relief from the harassing conditions which are contained in some awards lies in abandoning the too-common attitude of passive resistance. One hesitates, however, to carry this question farther at the moment, in view of the possible far-reach-ing consequences of the recent National Industrial Conference, an event which we may look upon, from the point of view, at any rate, of the basis on which this association stands, as the greatest event of the past year, possibly the most epoch-making event which has occurred since the passing of the original Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act in 1894."