The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1975. Trade unions and employers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33866, 11 June 1975, Page 20

The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1975. Trade unions and employers

“It takes two to quarrel ” according to the old saying. The English legal system since times immemorial has treated the pursuit of justice as a matter of confrontation between opponents, if necessary before a neutral arbitrator. Industrial relations in New Zealand have been founded on the same principle, at least since the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894 attempted to bring order to the chaos of physical confrontations between workers and employers. For many workers, before and since, and especially for members of trade unions, industrial relations have been a straightforward matter of “Us " and “ Them few people thought that they did not know clearly which side they were on. When the secretary’ of the Canterbury Shop Assistants’ Union (Mr B. Alderdice) said this week that this distinction between unionists and employers had to be maintained, otherwise the parties would not be able to meet and negotiate, he was endorsing traditional union orthodoxy. Common sense appears to require that two sides are necessary to resolve a quarrel as well as to make it.

But the orthodox trade union view has been challenged by a bookshop proprietor, Mr G. Tait, whose success in joining the union and its executive has led to an attempt by union officials to limit membership to people who own less than 50 per cent of the business in which they work. Mr Tait claims that he is attempting to serve the interests of the members of the union and that its efforts have been misdirected. The evidence of observation and common sense also supports Mr Tait. The industrial division, at least in New Zealand, is no longer always between employers and employees, but is often between those who are rather well off and those who are less well off. Many proprietors of small businesses (including at least in recent years, small farms) and members of less vigorous or less strategically placed trade unions (including the shop assistants’ union) are at an economic disadvantage when compared with members of unions whose work gives them greater power or with members of closed professional associations. When weak unions confront impoverished employers neither side can hope to gain very much. The real “ enemy ” of both groups must be found elsewhere, perhaps among such union leaders as were portrayed as “ industrial gangsters ” by Paul Johnston in an article from the “ New Statesman ” reprinted recently in “ The Press ”.

Mr Alderdice and Mr Tait are both right. The real cause of their dispute can be found in the change which has taken place in the distribution of wealth and power in the community since trade unions first evolved. The confrontation in the Canterbury Shop Assistants’ Union would be a tiny storm in a local tea-cup if it were not symbolic of the uncertainty about the future of industrial relations in a community where clear and obvious distinctions, based on relative wealth, can no longer be drawn. Unions which insist that owners or managers should not be union members are much less confident of the distinction when they advocate worker participation in . management. Traditional trade unions are appearing to be less and less the appropriate institutions by which to regulate fairly the distribution of incomes in the community. No generally-accepted alternative is in sight. If unions are to evolve to meet the new conditions, the participation of such employers as Mr Tait, whose interests are probably closer to those of many members of the union he has joined than they are to some other employers, offers one possible avenue for change. Together, Mr Tait and Mr Alderdice might be able to discover who — or what — is the real opponent of their union s members.