No Plans For Wage Freese

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32379, 19 August 1970, Page 28

No Plans For Wage Freese

(NiZ. Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 18. The Government was studying the possibility of a policy to set guidelines for employers and unions In wage-fixing procedures, but would certainly not entertain a prices and wages policy like that imposed, then abandoned, in Britain, the Minister of Labour (Mr Marshall) said today. Mr Marshall was expanding, in reply to a question, on comments about a departmental study of an “in-

comes policy" made recently by the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr H. G. Lang). “This concept of a guidelines policy Is very much in tiie formative stage, and it Is by no means certain that an effective policy will be achieved,” he told Dr A. M. Finlay (Lab., Henderson). Earlier he told Mr R. M. Barclay (Lab., New Plymouth), that a committee comprising the Secretaries of the Tressury, Industries and Commerce, and Labour had been set up to study - the desirability of an incomes policy or a general guidelines policy for prices and wages. This committee arose from a meeting in April between Cabinet Ministers and representatives of the F.0.L., the Employers Federation, the Manufacturers Federation, the Associated Chambers of Commerce, and Federated Farmers. The question had again been considered at a meeting with these parties in May, and while there was some interest in the sug- ■ gestion, it was clear that much more investigation ; and discussion would be necessary before any such proposal could be consld- ■ ered, Mr Marshall said.