INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16850, 2 June 1920, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES

VOLUNTARY ARBITRATION. (special to "the press.") AUCKLAND, June 1. According to Mr Albert Spenccr, president of the Auckland Employers Association, the Arbitration Court as we liavG it in New Zealand must go. It has had its dav. Something quicker is wanted. With the present systemthere is too much, loss of time. As soon as a dispute arises there should to machinery for dealing "svjth it ngnt> awnv. A conference of all tho emplovers' associations in New Zealand is to he held in Wellington to-morrow week, and at that gathering an important proposal from Auckland win suggest the improvement of our present methods of industrial arbitration. We have loyally stuck to the Arbitration Court as long as said_ Mr Spencer. Wo have kept faith.•with the Government and ba«ked them up, but row feel that there must be a change. Knowing that the Government is inclined to leniency, the workers have broken the law time after time and no action has boon taken Against tlioni, or if tliero has been a prosecution, such a time has elapsed that it has been most difficult to bring evidence. There has, in fact, been one law for the workers and one law for the employers, and as for the new legislation providing for tho setting up of disputes committees, it lias simnly legalised strikes. Mr iSpcncor indicated that tho proposed improvement in the method of settling industrial disputes was in the direction of voluntary arbitration. Speaking generally, he said that numbers of employers found the fixed wage most unsatisfactory. By it the good worker was pulled down to tho level of tho indifferent worker, and the poor worker -wis not satisfied with what ho was getting. A more equitable system would bo to pay for production, and if that principle wero introduced, it would go far to solve some of the difficulties that at present caused the universal industrial unrest.