COMPULSORY UNIONISM

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29107, 20 January 1960, Page 7

COMPULSORY UNIONISM

System Criticised By American

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 19. Dr E. Kingman Eberhart, professor of economics at the University College of Wooster, Ohio, who for the past six months has been observing the New Zealand labour scene on a Fulbright research grant, said in an interview in Wellington that nothing had so far changed his dislike of compulsory unionism. He pointed out that in the United States wages were determined by free collective bargain ing. There was no compulsory unionism, no compulsory arbitration and no Arbitration Court. Professor Eberhart said he still had to complete another six months’ work, dependent on the co-operation of employers, workers and the people who had so far been kind enough to let him sit in on Arbitration Court hearings and Conciliation Council proceedings. He noted that in New Zealand almost everyone enjoyed a good standard of living. There was full, if not overfull, employment and if the standard of living m the United States was still somewhat higher, New Zealand could still be proud of her achievement.

“The thing that strikes me most about New Zealand is the heavy reliance placed on the Government. New Zealanders apparently expect their Government to carry on activities which are the province of private enterprise jn other countries,” he said.

“In addition to actually carrying on business enterprises, the New Zealand Government seems to me to do more regulating and to issue more prohibitions than the American Government. “For example, price control and Governmental wage fixation were emergency wartime measures, which were abandoned as soon as possible in the United States.”

Trading hours were another example of Government regulation. Professor Eberhart said he was amazed that in a democratic country where housewives and other consumers had the vote, such rigid restrictions on trading hours as exist here, could prevail. His over all impression was that penalty payments were higher in New Zealand, and at times too high.