DEMAND MADE BY FARMERS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25129, 10 March 1947, Page 8

DEMAND MADE BY FARMERS

Higher Payments Sought WORK DONE AT WEEK-ENDS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 8. A decision to demand that farm prices should be increased sufficiently to place farmers on the same basis as other sections of the community, including payment for work necessarily done on Saturdays, Sundays, and statutory holidays, has been reached by Federated Farmers. The results of a review of stabilisation made by members of the Dominion council of the organisation when meeting in Wellington are now known. At that conference, the burden imposed upon the farming community by stabilisation, when, it was said, that there had been breaches of th? stabilisation policy on behalf of other industries, was discussed. ,P ominio P president (Mr W. W. Mulholland) said that the organisation pow had to give serious consideration i_A- e .relations of farmers with stabilisation. He contended that the Government had broken faith regarding stabilisation and said the farmers had no moral or legal obligations to continue with the stabilisation agreement of 1942.

However, continued Mr Mulholland farmers must accept some moral obligation to the country to give some notice if they decided against continuing the agreement. The conference passed a resolution asserting that Federated Farmers demand that farm prices should be increased sufficiently to place farmers on the same basis as other sections of the community, including payment for work necessarily done on Saturdays, Sundays, and statutory holidays. By the same resolution, the Dominion council decided to establish a committee to confer with the Meat and Dairy boards to make a public statement and to continue to work with the boards. In presenting the farmers case to the Government and the public, the federation intends also to define its attitude to increased labour rewards in submissions to the Arbitration Court when the claim for an over-all wage increase is being heard. This is a claim in which the trade unions are specially interested. Lately, for example, the Ngahauranga freezing workers pledged full support to the J-abour Federation’s attempt to-gain a full £l. It was decided also that the union should consider further action if the claim was not fully granted. It was believed that similar meetings were proposed by other unions before the Dominion Council meeting. The Federated Farmers’ dairy sec“QH of the council unanimously resolved to demand that labour reward t? r ai r y farmers and employees should be assessed by the same measuring rod as used by other industries, involving additional payment for Saturdays, Sundays, and statutory holidays. The section chairman (Mr H. E. Blyde). who is also chairman of the action committee of Federated Farmers, said the Dairy Board had instructed its representatives to ensure that the principle enunciated by the dairy section of the council was implemented immediately. The claims had been based on a 56-hour week. Mr Blyde added: “If we get overtime rates above 40 hours a week it will mean an increase of 8d a pound on butter-fat. The total cost to someneighbourhood of £12,000,000 a year.

, Addressing the Dominion Council, Mr Mulholland said: “You know that there have been numbers of wage increases granted. You know, too, of the application not only made possible by the Government, but actually facilitated, for a general wage increase. What you probably do not know is that the Government is endeavouring to extend the application of the stabilisation accounts in respect of farm •produce to some new lines One can only wondec at the inconsistency of

Mulholland added that it seemed the Government was being openly directed by outside • forces not responsible to the electors. It seemed that before long the Government would have to surrender completely to a very militant minority, or there would be a really big row ” “There have been a number of significant happenings in the industrial world lately,” Mr Mulholland said. There was the recent dispute between the Government and watersiders resulting in abject surrender by the Government in that dispute and capitulaH OI I - 9 ne of sinister incidents was that the semi-judicial head of the commission was instructed on the decision he should give. Fortunately, he resigned rather than do that, and we should honour him for his stand—too seldom a stand. To-day, all our liberties are bound up in the right of being able to resist an executive’s authority to override th«’ iudicial courts.

Salvage of Wanganena of th? WanganeUa, said Mr Mulholland, brought about another extraordinary exhibition. While popular attention .was centred on the absurd wages demanded and received the really sinister thing was the arrival of an Australian trade union secretary who had been able to put a a * the head of the Government. We must honour Mr Semple for his outspoken remarks in that connexion,’’ said Mr Mulholland. “He was refreshingly Plain and to the point, but has Mr Semple many colleagues in the Cabinet who do the same? ‘We avoided, while conducting th° price negotiations, the complete and open denunciation of stabilisation by ™ eat indust ry’s accepting the first £665,000 of increases and the Government accepting the remainder. That happened in September and October. 1946. and it would so appear that the Government was even then preparing for a general increase in wages and the consequent general breakdown of

The action of the Government in revoking the modification order of the second schedule of the Factories Act was another surrender of the principle of stabilisation, added Mr Mulholland. While others received continual increases in payments it seemed that the farmers were to be held rigid! v to their agreement. “What is. to be our policy? The Government is probably depending on the fact that we have vested interests of more than £10.000.000 in the various stabilisation accounts. The agreement of 1942 does not impose any penalty on us if we repudiate it. because the Government broken faith.”

During the discussion* of the dairv section of the council. Mr Blvrfe said“We know what effect our actions will have on the general policy of stabilisation. and we know how we have so far always nlaved our part in trying to maintain that nolicv It seems that when anvbodv advocates an increase in pav that no one worries either as to where the money is tn come from or about the affect on the countrv. If the farmer asks for an increase in na? he is asked where the mnnev is tn come from. The farmer always advocated stabilisation and alwavs sunported it. The F*»derafinn of Labour savs it supports stabilisation but it is asking for increased wage* combined with rigid nric*» control Tt seems *o us that it is time the countrv realised what it would mean if all sections are placed on the same basis.”