EMPLOYERS AND LABOUR

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30269, 23 October 1963, Page 12

EMPLOYERS AND LABOUR

Co-operation Call “In New Zealand we have missed the bus somewhere in our labour relations," said the retiring president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. Mr F B. McNish, yesterday in his presidential address at the chamber’s annual meeting. i He felt that ’he two main I factions —employers and labour—had been over-preoccu-pied w’ith the maintenance of what each would call its traditional rights. This also applied to the machinery that went with it. What made this even more important, he said, was that the manufacturing sector in New Zealand had not yet experienced the “full blast" of international competition. Mr McNish suggested that a conscious effort be made by all parties to get together for the avowed reason of increasing productivity a head. This, incidentally, would mean more prosperity per head. Employers, he said, should explain to their staffs not only when they were doing something but why they were doing it. In this way, mutual confidence in mutual prosperity would be engendered. Mr McNish said that maybe New Zealand could scrap some of the existing machinery of industrial relations as obsolete. New Zealanders must help themselves. He described the trend of the industrial and trading "colossus of Auckland" toward self-sufficiency, as insidious and damaging to New Zealand’s welfare.

Port Quiet.— More than 200 wateraiders were jobless at Lyttelton yesterday. Among vessels due today are the Australian timber freighter, Abel Tasman, with hardwood poles tor discharge. Originally bound for Greymouth from Cuff's Harbour, the Abel Tasman was diverted to Lyttelton because of her draft. Other vessels due are the coasters Katui and Poranui and the overseas vessels, Bankura and Crusader.