Farm unions favoured

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33383, 15 November 1973, Page 2

Farm unions favoured

(N.Z. Prut Aiiociatton) WELLINGTON, November 14. It would be greatly to the advantage of farming if the conditions of the Industrial Relations Act were extended to cover farm workers, the Federation of Labour said today. In submissions to a Select Committee of Parliament on :he Agricultural Workers Amendment Bill, the presiient of the F.O.L. (Mr T. E. Skinner) said such a provision would attract workers to the ndustry because of the more stable conditions of employnent and of the wages that would be created. Employers would have the idvantage of being able to negotiate these things with he general body of workers, nstead of having to make ocal or personal decisions. “There is no good argument against this bill, and a ?reat deal to commend it," said Mr Skinner. “From the point of view of workers in general it is long

overdue, and from the point of view of the country it will help to promote efficiency and orderly working in the industrial relations of primary industry.” The bill, which is being considered by the Laboui Committee under the chairmanship of Mr N. V. Douglas (Lab., Auckland Central), brings agricultural workers within the scope of the act. It gives the new Industrial Commission power to make awards and register agree-

t ments in relation to the emI ployment of agricultural r workers. s It would no doubt be said ■ that farm workers did not wish to join unions, and that ; their circumstances were not : suitable to - union membership, ■ Mr Skinner said. ; The same sort of thing was , said of many other workers ; in 1936, when the Industrial . Conciliation and Arbitration 1 Act was amended to provide i for compulsory union mem- ■ bership. “There is no doubt that a ’ large number of workers who joined unions at that time would not have become union members otherwise,” he said. Agricultural workers had no union which was working on their behalf, and they would most certainly incur the displeasure of their employers if they moved towards forming a union, Mr Skinner said. i "Without a union they have not the organisation or the resources to hold discussions with their employers concerning wages and working conditions, but are dependent on the periodic review of these matters by Order K in Council.” s. Orders concerning workers in market gardens, in orchards and vineyards, and on tobacco farms had been revised at regular intervals, and the latest of these referred to present conditions, Mr Skinner said. This was not so in the case iof the large number of workers employed on dairy farms and on sheep stations, for these orders had not been revised since the inception of the Agricultural Workers Act in 1962, Mr Skinner said. “It is strange and disturbing to think that this state of affairs should exist in New Zealand, a country which has prided itself oh its enlightened labour laws,” Mr Skinner said.