LEGISLATION NOT PROMISED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22004, 30 January 1937, Page 12

LEGISLATION NOT PROMISED

* MINISTER DENIES ALLEGATION

REPLY TO CANTERBURY EMPLOYERS

SETTLEMENT OF FREEZING

DISPUTE

A denial that legislation had been offered to the Auckland freezing workers if they abandoned their “stay-in” tactics and returned to work was made by the Minister for Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, last evening, when he vigorously replied to the statement issued during the week by the executive of the Canterbury Employers’ Association. The Minister roundly criticised the statement and claimed that similar action had been taken by Ministers for Labour during the last 30 years. “What I did was in the interests of industrial peace,” he said, “and it was therefore in the interests of New Zealand as a whole.”

“I don’t know what the source of their information is,” the Minister said, “but I am sure the conclusions they arrived at could not be obtained from anything I said or did. “A Diseased Mind” “The suggestion that the employers in the freezing industry only agreed to pay the increase under the Minister’s direction because they gathered from my threats that worse things might happen to them , could only emanate from someone who would stoop to any depth to discredit a Labour Minister, and if that is not the reason for it then it must have emanated from a diseased mind. • “In what other way,” he asked, “would they suggest I should have ■handled the dispute that cropped up in the freezing industry between the employers and the workers? My first move was to get the men out of the works and back to their occupation, which I succeeded in doing. Was there anything wrong about that? Or would they suggest I should have allowed them to remain in the works and allow the thing to spread throughout the country? Is that what they wanted?

“My next move was to request and not force the parties to the dispute to meet me in conference, the Minister continued. “That was readily agreed to. I presided at the conference myself because it was the unanimous wish of the representatives of both, the workers and employers that I should do so._ we - went thoroughly into the position in a conference which lasted two pretty long days. In the end both parties agreed to my proposal or direction, whichever they like to call it. But both sides were well aware of the fact that there was nothing in the 4aw to compel them to accept my direction.

Directions to Workers

“In the first place, I directed the workers’ representatives to forgo. their claim to a 40-hour week unm the termination of. the existing award. I also directed them to forgo their claims to increased rates for piece-workers, but I did say there was an unanswerable case made out for an increase in the rates of hourly workers, and I directed' accordingly. Both parties agreed to accept that". “It is not an uncommon thing tor a Minister to invite parties to come together. I believe exactly the same thing has happened under every Labour Minister in the last 30 years. It is no uncommon thing to approach employers to seek the removal or anomalies that may have crept into the award, or even the amendment of an award. These things are going on every day in the week.” The statement that he promised the workers amending legislation if they returned to work was strenuously denied by the Minister. “Who told the Canterbury Employers’ Association that I told the workers or anyone else that if they went back to work I would amend the award?” he asked. “No such statement was made by me, and the Employers’ Association knows quite well that no such statement was ever made by me, certainly not as a condition for the men to go bach to work. Whatever alteration may or may not be necessary L. the law or the awards has not been considered by me or by the Government itself. ~ “If any threats were made at an —and I am not in the habit of doing anything of the kind—or any used by me, it was to use ail the force at my command,” he added, “to make those fellows go back to work, and I was up against, very strong opposition.” . The Minister said that he had been reported at Auckland as having said that he wanted to do away with the Arbitration Court. He had had his speech recorded by a very fast stenographer, and the record showed that he had said that he wanted to do away with the system that made the Arbitration Court and other tribunals necessary.