APPLICATION FOR WAGE INCREASE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25136, 18 March 1947, Page 6

APPLICATION FOR WAGE INCREASE

Demand For £1 A Week, ‘J3r Else” POWERFUL UNIONS PREPARING (From our Special Industrial Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, March 16. A challenge to the authority of the Court of Arbitration is contained in the campaign now being developed by the militant unions behind the claims of the New Zealand Federation of Labour for a £1 a week increase in wages. Union branches are passing resolutions and union journals publishing editorials demanding that the £1 shall be granted. They threaten that if it is not, “further steps will be taken.” The militant urtions, who have a majority within the national council of the Federation of Labour, have determined that the £1 a week is the next big issue on which they are prepared to fight all-comers —the employers, chambers of commerce, the Court of Arbitration, or the Government. They claim that no one can deny the worker has lost ground to the full extent of £1 a week, and they are prepared to go to the full length to get that £l. Not only do they openly' declare they will do this, but they demand also that the Government must act to prevent prices from rising when wages are increased. Round this policy the same powerful industrial forces that achieved the overthrow of the Waterfroiit Industry Commission and the establishment of higher guarantees and better conditions for watersiders are now being marshalled. Just how much the unions expect to receive from the Court is indicated by the secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union (Mr T. Hill), who in the March issue of the “New Zealand Transport Worker” says: “The Arbitration Court has never been noted for<ts generosity towards the workers. A perusal of recent awards issued by the Court shows that 5s a week, or IJd an hour, is the maximum they have granted. Therefore to win the 6d an hour {£ 1 for 40-hour week) we must mobilise. In that way we can put the representatives of the Federation of Labour in the position to inform the Court that the 6d must be granted, or else. . . . “The necessity for agitation is beyond question. • We have only to glance across the Tasman lia, where the powerful Australian Council of Trade Unions applied for £1 a week increase. After a long-drawn-out hearing the Court granted 7s. The decision provoked a storm of industrial trouble. Now the unions are having to fight the employers for the other 13s and ar? nyeting with success.” May Break Away This and similar references in union journals and in union branch resolutions indicate that the militant unions now feel themselves strong enough to tackle the Court of Arbitration. Several have already hinted that because of delays and decisions unsatisfactory to the workers they will break away from the Court’s jurisdiction to achieve their demands. Mr Hill’s article continues on this point: “The function of the Court has been clearly defined. It is not so much to determine wages and conditions as to preserve industrial peace. If it wants to do that, the way is obvious. But the Court’s value to the employers in the past has been demonstrated by their demand for all disputes to go to arbitration. They love the Arbitration Court. Harry Holland, Bob Semple, and others aptly referred to it as the ‘leg-iron for Labour’.” Mr Hill’S union has itself long since left the Court of Arbitration, but has arranged with the Government that it will benefit from any wage increase the Court may shortly grant. His union has for some years contained sufficient industrial power to take much of what it has wanted. Its recent major victory is already inspir-" ing other unions‘to contemplate direct action. While the waterfront dispute had hardly begun the New Zealand Tramway Employees’ Union was taking a national poll on the issue of moving for a national agreement, or, alternatively, deregistering under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and registering instead under the Trades Union Act. This move would place all disputes under the Labour Disputes Investigation Act, which gives the worker the legal right to strike. The official journal of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union recently echoed the cry that the Court was in fact a “leg-iron for Labour.” The president of the New Zealand Labourers’ Federation, Mr P. M. Butler, has alio hinted that the time may have come for unions to seek satisfaction of their demands by some constitutional means other than the Court of Arbitration. Strike Tribunals The militant unions have in fact used other means. The Strikes and Lock-outs Emergency Regulations, a war-time measure, have been employed frequently oyer the last 12 months to force swift Settlement of industrial • disputes, in many of which the Court had already given its ruling. This method of circumventing the Court and forcing further concessions has become extremely popular. , Strike and lock-out tribunals, however, meet under the threat of direct action on the part of unions and their decisions must be influenced by it. It Us a threat that emerges from the unions’ fujl appreciation of their industrial power in a time of grave labour shortage. When labour is more plentiful they will be ready again to seek the shelter of the Court. As things are at present, however, the militant unions are powerful enough to move independently of the Court. It is not only because they are conscious of their new power that the unions are moved to take direct action and tp talk of abandoning or challenging the/Court. They realise at same time that the Government of the day may not survive its present term, and that in any case it is not disposed without pressure to grant more concessions to the unibns. Therefore the unions are setting out to take for themselves, as big a slice as they can of a “new order” while .there is still time-