Railwaymen Oppose Direct Bargaining

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32306, 26 May 1970, Page 1

Railwaymen Oppose Direct Bargaining

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 25. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants has reversed its position on direct wage negotiations. A resolution from a special conference of the society today said that members’ interests would be best served by continued use of the existing machinery of negotiations and conciliation, the six-monthly index of ruling-rate surveys, general orders of the Arbitration Court, and direct negotiations as appropriate.

, The conference said that at present there was no satisfactory substitute for the existing system.

Previously the national council of the society had expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling-rate survey system and had resolved to press for direct negotiations on wage claims. At Otahuhu, the most militant of branches advocating a change to direct bargaining, the society’s branch secretary (Mr C. S. Duffy) called the conference decision an about face, and said the 500 branch members would meet tomorrow to discuss it. The Railway Tradesmen’s Association, which has also been pressing for direct bargaining, has not altered its views, according to the national president (Mr D. A. Crosado). He said that the problems that created the disputes earlier this year at the Hutt, Otahuhu and Addington workshops were no nearer being solved, as far as tradesmen were concerned, than they were last February. “The Minister of Railways (Mr Gordon) is not speaking on behalf of the association when he implies that railwaymen endorsed the Government’s wage-fixing arrangements,” Mr Crosado said. Mr Gordon said on Saturday that a settlement had been reached in the dispute

| which led to rolling strikes i , at railway workshops. He I said railway union officials; ’ had displayed a sensible atti- • tude in deciding that railway] servants would go back to I

i 1 work on pre-February condii tions. J The rolling strikes were started by dissatisfaction | at wage fixing procedures for > I some groups of tradesmen.