INDUSTRIAL UNREST IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25732, 18 February 1949, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL UNREST IN N.Z.

ADDRESS BY MR J. T. WATTS Two main issues were involved in the present industrial unrest, said Mr J. T. Watts, M.P., addressing a meeting in the Winton Street Hall last evening. The first was that dissatisfaction with wage rates arose directly fiom the inflation of the country's currency. The alteration in the exchange rate to par with sterling, which the Government had predicted would increase the purchasing power of money, had not had this effect, and the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) had taken certain steps in the last few months, such as a considerable increase in Reserve Bank credit, which had steadily aggravated the situation. The other issue was that some of the union leaders, encouraged by the weak and vacillating policy or the Government, appeared to be determined to wreck the Arbitration Court and all the Court stood for. Arbitration Court procedure was one of the greatest safeguards that the working man could have. The repeated defiance of industrial agrements and industrial awards and the bypassing of the Arbitration Court, both by the Government and by certain unions who believed in direct action, could only result in the loss of the hard-won privileges of the working man. These things also tended to increase the inflationary spiral by decreasing production, said Mr Watts.