To Bring ‘Sanity’ To The Govt

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 18

To Bring ‘Sanity’ To The Govt

(New Zealand Preet Association) DUNEDIN, March 13. The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr T. E. Skinner, said in Dunedin, tonight that he hoped the effects of stopwork meetings throughout New Zealand would bring some “sanity” to the Government.

Asked why the federation had decided to hold the meetings during working time, Mr Skinner said it was the only effective way of bringing home to the general public as well as union members the seriousness of the situation. “Probably attendances at week-end meetings would have been twice as large, but these would not have had the same impact,” Mr Skinner said. The federation had made continual representations to the Government in the past, but these had fallen on deaf ears. No Directive Asked if he thought it fair that workers should forgo wages while they attended stop-work meetings, Mr Skinner said there were as many workers paid while they attended the Auckland meeting today as those who were not. The federation had issued no general directive that union members should attend the stop-work meetings. It was left to individual

members and unions to decide, he said. The federation had not sought a complete shut down of industry because of the meetings.

The response to the Auckland meeting was better than he had expected and one of the largest labour meetings since 1935, Mr Skinner said.