Industrial Unrest

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 16

Industrial Unrest

Sir,—Mr Edmonds talks about “where the extra money” for huge wage increases for some “is coming from.” If we reckon “money” as purchasing power, that is fairly simple. Extra demand may result in some extra production, but that is unlikely to be the main effect. Some employers may accept reduced profits, but they will be the exception rather than the rule. Most wage increases of the order of 30 per cent must come out of the purchasing power of other sections of the people, often those who are already worst off. Some will probably be pushed below “the poverty line” by the effects of present events. To tolerate what is happening is therefore equivalent to toleration of organised robbery, and when the Government talks placidly of “bringing the parties together” it is leaving out of the bargaining entirely those from whom the “money’.’ is really going to come.—Yours, etc., MARK D. SADLER. . July 28, 1970.

Sir,—An employee who is obliged to work for whatever wage his employer can offer is reduced to the status of a slave. The proposed freezing works legislation does exactly that Just when is stock not in transit for killing? Good sense and understanding are badly needed in the industrial field or thej-e will be a terrible slump.—Yours, etc., SERF. July 28, 1970. Sir,—l object to the deletion from my letter of the word “workers” in my reference to the National Workers’ Socialist , Party of Germany. The A in Nazi is for Arbeiterpartei, the workers, originally trapped by inflation and Who “bought it” New Zealand stop-workers are bidding for inflation. “Caveat emptor”: let the buyer beware. Disinflation is painfully inevitable in the long rim, but less painful now.—Yours, A. B. CEDARIAN. July 28, 1970. Sir,—“Keeping striking freezing workers waiting for all stock in transit was quite