STABILISATION LAWS AMENDED

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25735, 22 February 1949, Page 4

STABILISATION LAWS AMENDED

Wage Rulings By Court Of Arbitration RELATIVE INCOME MOVEMENTS MUST BE EXAMINED From Our Own Reporter WELLINGTON, February 21. Relative movements in the incomes of different sections of the community must now be examined by the Court of Arbitration. The conditions under which the Court may make either a standard wage pronouncement or a general order increasing wages have been changed by an amendment to the Economic Stabilisation Emergency Regulations, 1942. The new amendment (No. 14), gazetted to-day, will apply to the applications for a standard wage pronouncement recently filed by the New Zealand Employers’ Federation and the New Zealand Federation of Labour. The material changes made by the amendment include the following: (1) The economic considerations which must be examined by the Court before it makes either a new pronouncement fixing standard rates for skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workers, or a general order increasing wages, are now the same. (2) These considerations are:—(a) The promotion of the economic stability of New Zealand; (b) any rise or fall in retail prices, as indicated by any index published by the Government Statistician; (c) the economic conditions affecting finance, trade, and industry in New Zealand; (d) relative movements in the incomes of different sections of the community; (e) all other considerations that the Court deems relevant. [ln accordance with the recommendations of the Index Committee, which were adopted by the Government, no further data will be collected by the Government Statistician for the war-time price index, and this index will not again be published. It is to be replaced by the Consumers’ Price Index, the base period for which is the first quarter of 1949.]

INTERVAL BETWEEN INCREASES

The amendment to the regulations provides that the Arbitration Court may make a general order increasing wages, upon application being made for a new standard wage pronouncement. and vice versa. A full year must elapse between the making or taking effect of a pronouncement or a general order, and the making or taking effect of another. Before making a pronouncement or a general order., the Court must afford such opportunity to be heard as it thinks proper, to representatives appointed by the parties bound by awards and industrial agreements. Should the Court adopt the course of making a new standard pronouncement. it may proceed to amend those awards and industrial agreements that are in force when the pronouncement is made. The Court is then to have due regard to any increases in the rates of remuneration of the workers affected by a particular award or industrial agreement granted by the Court since October 1. 1947, and it must also have due regard to the proper relationship between the rates under consideration and those of other workers or classes of workers. Apprentices in most trades will participate automatically in any increases

the Court may award under the regulations, since in most cases an apprentice’s wage is fixed as a proportion of the relevant journeyman’s rate. Where this is not so, the Court has power, upon application being made, to amend the apprentices’ 1 rates or to apply to them the terms of a general order. The amendment revokes several clauses introduced as transitional provisions by earlier amendment and now spent. It also revokes the Rates of Wages Emergency Regulations. 1940, which formerly governed the making of general orders. Mr Nordmeyer’s Comment The Minister in charge of Stabilisation (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer) said today: “It should be stressed that it is only in the event of the Court making a general order that the rates of wages of workers (other than apprentices) bound by awards or industrial agreements, are increased automatically. Indeed, the Court is empowered to exclude from the benefit of such an order any specified class or section of workers. “Those workers not bound by awards or industrial agreements are not entitled to the benefit of any increase following upon a general order or a standard wage pronouncement, except where an increase is specifically authorised under the regulations.”