Workers Look For ‘Three Essentials’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 20

Workers Look For ‘Three Essentials’

(New Zealand Preet Association}

WELLINGTON, May 8. More industrial trouble is caused, and greater losses in production occur, from lack of communication between employer and worker than from any other cause at the present time, the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr T. E. Skinner) told the National Development Conference today.

During a morning of speeches by major interest

groups to the plenary session of the conference, Mr Skinner said a worker was entitled to

know what his future held, what new processes were to be introduced and what changes were planned; and he was entitled, after doing a competent job, to more than “a notice of dismissal with the minimum of warning.” “Three Essentials” Mr Skinner said there were three essentials to development as far as the working people were concerned. These were:

1. They should be assured of an income which included the reward due to them

on account of higher productivity. 2. They should have available to them facilities for education and training which will allow them to make the most of opportunities which are offering. 3. They should be informed of all matters which can concern them in the industry in which they are engaged. Trained Workers Mr Skinner said the first essential included both the matter of incentives in rates of payment for work done, and treatment as regards taxation which was no less favourable than that given to their employers. In the second essential, the federation had in mind the need to provide trained workers from the New Zealand work force itself before the country went overseas looking for them. “And in the third, we refer to the whole range of industrial relations, the building of good relations between workers and employers because of shared knowledge and genuine interest (suitably rewarded) in the industry in which workers are en- , gaged.”

If these essential requirements were met, Mr Skinner said, the federation felt that much could be done in the common interest.