Tougher Industrial Legislation Urged

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 24

Tougher Industrial Legislation Urged

(New Zealand Press Association)

NELSON, June 11.

A strengthening of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act this year would provide better procedures and introduce penalties which could be enforced, Mr E. S. F. Holland, the National member of Parliament for Riccarton, said in Nelson today.

Those penalties would be enforced by the Government, he said. A caucus committee headed by the Minister of Labour (Mr Marshall) was working on changes in the act and should soon be able to make an official approach on them to the Federation of Labour and the Employers’ Federation. It was intended that legislation changing the act would be approved this year, he said. Mr Holland is a member of the Government caucus committee on industrial relations. He said the use of the strike as a weapon in wage claims was being overdone. “There is a need for discipline in wage fixing. We must get the parties to agree to some kinds of restraints and ' then impose them.” There was no easy solution to the problem but possibly, in the short term, there could be some artificial restraint, "a type of semi-wage freeze," he said.

Although it would not cure the problem, it seemed that somewhere along the line a salutary lesson was needed. If procedures were not followed, action should be taken against

workers involved in a wildcat strike or against the union officials if it was a union strike. To overcome the basic problems, it was essential to get the different parties together to find a better system of communication between management and employees. The freezing industry was one example of the need for

better communication between management and labour. “I’m a little at a loss to know why there has not been an investigation into this aspect of the freezing industry,” he said. It was a special industry with its own problems and the reasons for the lack of communication between management and labour should be sought, Mr Holland said.