’Pay rises would hit employment’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33777, 25 February 1975, Page 18

’Pay rises would hit employment’

(New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, February 24. A new round of wage increases this year would mean a substantia) rise in unemployment, said the president of the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce (Mr L. A. Cameron) to the Invercargill chamber tonight.

Many New Zealand firms i would have no choice but to! lay off staff if faced with any! wages increase at all this year, he said.

Many businesses had been brought to the point where their viability was in serious doubt.

“They are squeezed between rising costs and wages on one hand, and a fall-off of business on the other, made worse by two other factors.

“One is tightness of liquidity which prevents firms from obtaining the finance they need to replace and expand their products capacity, and the other is a squeeze on profits which prevents their being able to finance such replacement and expansion from their own resources,” Mr Cameron said.

Some firms were alreadyretrenching in one way or another, and many others were in the position where it would take only one more setback to make them follow It was time the unions suit.

recognised that if they were to keep their present power base, thev must change their whole stance so that the trade union movement was not an organisation primarily concerned with dollars but rather with the over-all welfare of its members.

“If they do not change their prime objective of getting higher pay for their members, it is almost certain the union movement will either decav or will be taken over by zealous social reformers. many of whom will be seeking personal power.” said Mr Cameron.