‘Stoppages cut to minimum’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33092, 6 December 1972, Page 11

‘Stoppages cut to minimum’

(Neto Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 5.

The president of the Federation of Labour (Mr T. E. Skinner) yesterday made it clear there would not be industrial Utopia with the promised co-operation between the federation and the Government.

“We’ll have stoppages. We don’t live in Utopia and we’re not Utopians, but at least the stoppages will be cut to a minimum and we’ll be able to get round the table and do things,” he said at a Wellington Rotary Club luncheon. He said that the federation’s 1967 offer of co-opera-tion with the Government would have been the greatest stabilisation feature of the country. “But no-one understood it, and the whole thing was turned down,” he said. He said that the 1967 offer to hold wages and conditions till agreements had expired would not have halted stoppages but would have been a big feature of stabilisation. “That’s what we’ve offered the Labour Government and we’re sure they’ll accept it,” he said. ‘Government decision’ Mr Skinner made it clear that the F.O.L. did not want

to tell the Government what to do. “We’ll co-operate with the Government and they’ll make the final decision,” he said. “They’ll take into consideration our, and the employers’ thoughts and then make a decision in the interests of the people and the country generally.” Mr Skinner said that New Zealand’s industrial relations were now worse than they were 20 years ago. He said that the penalties the Government had written into the Industrial Relations Bill had made the proposed legislation unworkable. “You can’t force people to co-operate,” he said. Bill’s form “Some in the Government don’t understand good will; you can’t get good will out of the barrel of a gun.” Mr Skinner said he hoped the bill would be in a form acceptable to the F.O.L. and the Employers’ Federation when it came from the Labour and Mining Bills Committee. “That’s the only way it will work,” he said.