Wage Order “Not The Answer”

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32306, 26 May 1970, Page 16

Wage Order “Not The Answer”

A general wage order was not the answer to the present situation in New Zealand, said the director of the Canterbury Employers’ Association (Mr N. M. West), addressing the Canterbury branch of the Sales and Marketing Executives’ Club last evening.

While there were some people who had not participated in the present round of wage increases, there were others who had had “a fair sort of feast,” Mr West said. Under a general wage order, those who had received plenty would get more, and those who had not participated in increases so far would probably not get enough, he said.

“How do we give justice to those who have not participated so far, outside of a general wage order? There has been a lot of thought given this, and I think we may have found an answer,” he said. “What we are looking for is a means of putting respect back into the award system.” In the past, all had known that the document they were writing did not reflect the actual situation.

“And the document has got to be honoured for its term —lack of sanctity for agreements has been much of our trouble in the last few months,” Mr West said. If there was one thing New Zealand needed, it was stability. “If we are going to have stability, we must look for some system that will provide equity, but give the businesses working under it a period of stability where they can cost their goods and know that their cost-struc-tures are stable, and that they can market their goods in an orderly fashion. “There is nothing worse than trying to market goods not knowing if the next day the cost-structure is going to change,” Mr West said. “The whole of the New Zealand economy has been built up on the system of conciliation and arbitration, and everyone has got used to having some sort of pattern on which to work. It is the total departure from the pattern which is at present more damaging than anything else.” The most frequent comment was that New Zealand had a

chaotic situation for which it must find a remedy if it was not to face an inflationary situation worse than had ever before been encountered, Mr West said.

Those who spoke for the workers would say that direct bargaining was the only alternative, and that the arbitration system was hopelessly outmoded—but he did not subscribe to this view.

Nor would he say that what was no . being described as direct bargaining was direct bargaining, for it did not deal with all the facets of the situation. The award system was under-pinning it, and it was more a matter of direct demanding.

The award system was not necessarily outmoded, but it was showing signs of being unable to cope with many of the pressures now being placed on it, Mr West said. One of the contributing factors to the present situation was that wage levels were being dictated in certain key areas by labour shortages. “If we are not careful, wte will end up with a wage structure that is inflated because of labour shortages." “In New Zealand, we have grown up with a system of bargaining which very rarely reached the shop floor. Quite suddenly, we are faced with attempts at piece-meal bargaining by unions not only intent on keeping their place in the scheme of things, but there is also the desire to do something better than has been done before. And we are getting a constant escala tion, one building on the other,” Mr West said.

“I think the public is realising that if wages are continually forced up, then there is not going to be any real means of staving off price increases,” he said. “It is only by holding the top of the scale and making adjustments at the bottom, where it is needed, that we will get back some semblance of sanity. "If we carry on, we will end up with wage rates which will cut us out of many of the overseas markets which have been developed. This will not do the industries concerned any good, nor their workers”

Many of the sources of information available to the public at large were a little unreliable, Mr West said. Things which were published were published in good faith, but it was often the things which were not said that were important. It was often a question of half-truths, and it was the reservations which should be attached which would put things in perspective. A lot had been said about the “terrible industrial climate" in New Zealand, Mr West said, but he did not believe it was “all that terrible at the root of things.” What was coming to the surface could be limited to two or three groups of industries which had had a history of friction, and in which one found the more militant elements of unionism.

There were many groups which one never heard much about, and in which indus-

trial relations were good. The problem was how to keep that section still with good relations, and yet manage the wilder element. A lot of store had been placed on statements from high places on the vexed question of striking, and the late Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) had made it clear that he thought the right to; strike existed. All too frequently, however, what had been seen was a request from workers' representatives for certain things, with the right to withdraw labour being used as a first resort rather than a last.

The employer was told, when the request was made, what the outcome would be if he did not agree.