Wage Hearing To Begin Today

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32384, 25 August 1970, Page 28

Wage Hearing To Begin Today

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 24. Submissions by the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr T. E. Skinner) will open the hearing tomorrow by the Court of Arbitration of an application filed earlier this year for a general wage order.

The amount has not yet been publicly stated.

The hearing will be before Judge A. P. Blair, the employers’ representative (Mr W. N. Hewitt), and the newly appointed workers’ representative (Mr W. G. McDonnell). Filed on May 8 in the name of the New Zealand Printing and Related Trades Union of Workers, the application is the first since the nil order of 1968 and the subsequent reapplication which resulted in a restricted 5 per cent order It is also the first wage order application to which the criteria established in a series of talks between representatives of employers and workers and Government officials, and embodied in the General Wage Orders Act, 1969, will apply. After the nil decision and

| the resultant industrial un- support of a wage order will 'rest, these talks established a be made by the association's broader field to be taken into general secretary tMr D. P. account by the Court of Arbi- Long). tration in considering any A break to prepare replies general wage order applica- to the submissions will then tion. be sought by the_New Zea-

Continuing industrial legislation discussions, particularly this year, and the prospect of amendments to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, mean that this order could be the last of its type. The initial hearing is expected to take about three days, although this will depend on a number of factors, including the amount of crossexamination of Mr Skinner’s submissions, the number of witnesses he calls, and the time taken by the New Zealand Public Service Association in submissions. The P.S.A. submissions in

land Employers’ Federation, represented by its executive director (Mr P. J. Luxford). It is believed that Mr Skinner will have to travel overseas again in the near future, and the time involved in this is expected to influence the date at which the hearing will recommence.