Difficulties of Negotiation On State Services Pay

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30108, 17 April 1963, Page 16

Difficulties of Negotiation On State Services Pay

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 16. Specially-trained, full-time industrial negotiators would soon be needed by employee organisations and employers, Mr H. F. Allen, general secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, told the Wellington Institute of Public Administration. He said the threat of automation brought an increasing need for close collaboration between management and workers.

Negotiations within the State services were often hampered because employees were not talking with their direct employers, as in private industry, said Mr Allen

State service employees were far less prone to strike because it had little effect on the State. “A strike in private enterprise means an immediate stopping of production, sales and profits, but like an octopus that has lost one tentacle. the State carries on as if nothing had happened.” he said.

The State was also hampered because of salary maximums, Mr Allen said. “Private enterprise can pay to get a suitable man without regard for service or experience.”

He pointed out that Government departments must always keep one eye on other departments to avoid creating a precedent as other employees might claim on the general principle of equality and relativity throughout the Public Service.

A private employer could afford to pay above-award rates by passing on the increased costs to the consumer. he said, but “the dead hand of the Treasury” bung over State departments. i

"Management within the State services takes on a re-mote-control look, and to the average employee the employing authorities in the departments take on an air of being of their own world but not in it,” said Mr Allen.

“To aggravate the position we now have the State Services Commission hovering in the background, even more remote and inaccessible. although technically the real employer in most cases.” Mr Allen said it was at this point the employee inevitably turned to his organisation and its officials. “We must have good relations between employee organisations and employing authorities, and although good relations generally do exist. I believe there is more room for the State to ad-

vance in this field than any other.”

Many large departments were not directly represented on the State Services Commission, he said, and their points of view were often ignored. Mr Allen advocated wider and closer representation of all departments in negotiations, and urged that power be decentralised so that lower-level executives could make decisions without having to waste time channelling them through their head offices.