Cabinet wants one wage-fixing body

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34103, 16 March 1976, Page 1

Cabinet wants one wage-fixing body

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 15.

The Government is considering the establishment of one over-all wage-fixing tribunal to deal with salary claims by the Public Service and trade unions.

The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said today that the Cabihet had discussed wagefixing systems, and that the Government would soon begin talks with the Federation of Labour and State service representatives about the tribunal.

Before any decision was made on this, the Government would have to settle means of dealing with the next cost-of-living order, to be announced at the end of June. Mr Muldoon said he thought the cost of living would have risen by about eight per cent in the six months to be covered by the order. He was sure there would be a wage increase, and “We’ve got to be fair.” Overseas import payments were now beginning to level out, and the Government saw an opportunity to reduce inflation in New Zealand to a single-figure percentage. Inflation was probably now running about 16 per cent. Mr Muldoon said he had discussed wage-fixing procedures with the chairman of the wage tribunals, and they had agreed that the biggest defect in the present system was the fact that different tribunals dealt with trade union claims and State Service claims.

He said they had told him that they were concerned about their ability to know whether cases brought before them represented attempts at “leapfrogging,” were efforts to catch up, or were claims .based on equal terms.

Mr Muldoon said wagefixing was the next major problem of the Government’s economic campaign. The smaller the June order was, the better for the economy. “But it is not that simple. We have got to be fair.” The Prime Minister said that he believed the bringing of trade union and State Service wage claims under one tribunal would hasten a return of free industrial bargaining.

In Auckland, the president of the Federation of Labour (Sir Thomas Skinner) said he did not think the proposals would affect the F.O.L.

It appeared that State Services would be brought under a similar wage-fixing authority to the one which controlled the private sector. He hoped that Parliamentarians would be under the same wage-fixing authority.

The chairman of the Combined State Service Organisation (Mr I. E. Reddish) said tonight that the size of the wage-fixing tribunal scheme made it impracticable. He called Mr Muldoon’s suggestion “simply kite flying,” and was surprised that the' Prime Minister would “fly such a kite in such a delicate area."

In Mr Reddish’s view, the proposal in its present form would be rejected out of hand by the C.S.S.O. The basic issues would be whether the State Sendees would be empowered with the same negotiating rights, including direct bargaining, as their counterparts in outside industry and whether, the Government would be prepared to live with the situation where the State Services, through direct bargaining, could set wage levels.