Massive strikes predicted

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32564, 25 March 1971, Page 3

Massive strikes predicted

Once the Stabilisation of Remuneration Bill was passed, organised labour unless brought under control by legislation would take steps to call massive strikes making demands on employers which could not be met, said Mr R. H. Stewart in Christchurch yesterday.

Managing director of P.D.L. Industries, Ltd, and a former national president of the Manufacturers’ Federation, Mr Stewart said, he was convinced of this. His opinion was given in the course of a luncheon address to the Canterbury branch of the Society of Accountants.

Mr Stewart said that organised labour was using the strength of compulsory membership to oppose the bill. “They say that they’ve got 50,000 men behind them when perhaps they’ve only got 10,” he said. “I am convinced, as a large employer, that at least three-

quarters of all the employed people in this country are sick and tired of the constant industrial unrest,” he said.

“It is remarkable to me that organised labour leaders continuously state they want freedom to negotiate, freedom to claim higher wages for their members, freedom to strike, freedom to walk out leaving animals to starve, freedom to refuse to work efficient machinery to keep our costs down, freedom to state they will disobey the law . . .” said Mr Stewart. “What I would like to know is, what about the freedom that the rank and file, good-type employees are denied in this country?” he asked. “Where is this freedom for them to express their point of view?”

Mr Stewart said it was compulsory for workers to belong to unions before they could take jobs; they were compelled to pay union fees and employers could be prosecuted for employing nonunion members.

Was it not time he asked, that the Federation of Labour gave its members some freedom to express their views by means of secret ballots conducted in neutral atmospheres? If “our good employees” ’were able to decide by secret ballot whether they would take strike action, adopt goslow tactics or hold stopwork meetings, “perhaps we may find that a lot of this industrial unrest is in the minds of some of their leaders and not desired by the rank and file good employee.

“A deplorable situation is developing where good employers—and there are many —are now being denied the opportunities of developing

their staffs, of creating better employment conditions, of ploughing back tax-paid profits for the betterment of their workers and their future children . . . those days are gone. "Organised labour,” said Mr Stewart, “is taking the view that what was once a privilege granted because an employer wished to do so, automatically now becomes a right. This is breaking down the good will that should exist between workers and management, and it is being broken down deliberately.” Mr Stewart said that last week, in response to a call from the Federation of Labour for protest measures against the Stabilisation of Remuneration Bill, “certain employees in one company—and it was not mine—protested about losing one-fifth of their weekly income and didn’t want to stop. “They wished to have a ballot on this point. They were quite firmly told that they were on strike without any chance whatsoever of expressing .an opinion. No meeting was called. They were merely told: ‘You are on strike, Joe,’ and that’s what happened. "This inflation must be contained. New Zealand is too small a country to support it. Our future is in the hands of the Government, not the Federation of Labour,” said Mr Stewart. “It will be interesting to see the manner in which the Labour Party will vote regarding this bill, because it must be quite clear to any thinking person that the situation is out of hand.” EXPORT WORRY

More than 11 per cent of New Zealand’s income from exports now came from manufactured goods, .but during the last 12 months this country’s labour costs had risen so much that manufac-turers-such as himself were now wondering if they could continue to increase their exports, he said. In one of his companies, Mr Stewart said, the average wage for 250 workers had risen about $9.60 between one week and the next. Largely because of this, export products which had previously sold at a profit were now losing money. A switch which had cost 70c and was sold for 77c now cost 84c to produce; another had risen in cost from 88c to $1.02 and was selling at 99c; and a third which sold at $1.02 now cost $1.32 to produce. (Reply by F.O.L. president, Page 12)