ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26521, 8 September 1951, Page 2

ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION

“TIMELY REMARKS’’ BY MR ROSENBERG

MR H. G. KILPATRICK’S COMMENT

"The surest way to more strikes is to attempt to put the workers in a State-controlled straitjacket, especially when the workers now feel that those controlling the State are not their political friends.” This comment on reports in “The Press" of an address on New Zealand's system of conciliation and arbitration, given recently by Mr W. Rosenberg, a lecturer in economics at Canterbury University College, and a leauing article in “The Press” yesterday, is included in a statement by Mr H. G. Kilpatrick. Mr Kilpatrick is secretary of the Canterbury Freezing Works and Related Trades Union.

“I personally feel that Mr Rosenberg’s remarks on our present system of settling industrial disputes are timely and valuable,” Mr Kilpatrick said. ’ “Timely because any attempt to put industrial relations into an Arbitration Court straitjacket will inevitably tyorsen industrial relations in those industries where direct negotiation between the parties is coming more and more to be the accepted method of reaching agreements. “The surest way I can think of for industrial relations to deteriorate would be for employers generally to. refuse to settle disputes in conciliation councils and, right or wrong, force all disputes into the Arbitration Court for settlement, when complete settlements which are fair and satisfactory to both sides are possible by intelligent and patient negotiation. Mr Rosenberg’s remarks are valuable at the present time if only to direct the attention of all of us to the fact that the Present system is not as perfect or as Ideal as some would like to think.

“I took none of the inferences from Mr Rosenberg’s remarks that your editorial did, but rather interpreted his reported remark ‘unless the Arbitration Court gave way to some such system' as meaning other methods in addition to the Arbitration Court. “Want Less State Control” ‘‘We want less State control, not more." Mr Kilpatrick said. “We want more State help and less State interference. Few people realise that State control of industrial relations .by legislation has become much tighter in the last 20 years. Wisdom suggests that this process should be reversed and the system liberalised and freed from some of the restraints and restrictions and the parties given more freedom and encouragement to settle their own affairs, without being pushed, whether they like it or not, into the Arbitration Court. “If employers feel that the Court, with its uniformity and conformity, is a protection against higher wages, let them not forget that repeated rejection of claims the workers ieel to be just would in the end result in the workers losing all faith in the Court. The end result would be a revolt against such arbitration by the larger unions, which have much more often than not been able to reach satisfactory settlements by direct negotiations with their own employers. At present all four parties—State, Court, employers, and workers—are involved in a continuing and developing process of negotiation and decision. It is not static, and any attempt to make it so by more ’Stateism’ would be disastrous. It would be more disastrous still for the workers to feel that the first three were lined up against them. “As for strikes. We have had them before and will have them again while the system of workers selling their labour power to employers continues, ’’ Mr Kilpatrick said. “They are a byproduct of our present system of social and political relations. Restrictive legislation will not stop them. Workers’ Right to Strike “If we live in a free society, and if there is anything in the specious talk of ‘freedom’ we hear so muen about these days, surely the worker has as much right to strike by withholding his labour because the price (wages) is not attractive, as has any farmer by withholding his labour ui the form of wheat not grown because the price is not attractive. "It should not be forgotten by any of us who claim to be either socialists or liberal democrats that the ‘right to strike’ lies at the basis of all the workers’ rights. Take it away and we re on the march to a Fascist police State. "However, the right to strike, like all rights, carries with it responsibilities. and it is at this point, I feel, that the ‘form t ’ not the ‘principle’ Of State intervention assumes the greatest importance. Those who cry out against State interference in other branches of our national affairs would do well to direct their attention l<> the important field of industrial relations. It is the greatest of mistakes to think that all industrial wisdom reposes in either Government or Arbitration Court, and I say this with all due respect to both. More management of our own affairs might be better all round. Both employers and union leaders have their responsibilities in the present scheme of things, and the easiest but not always the most satisfactory way out is to ’pass ths buck’ to the Arbitration Court to do a job we should do for ourselves.”