Employers stick to 11.5%

Press, 1 July 1978, Page 5

Employers stick to 11.5%

The road transport industry is willing to pay its general drivers a wage increase of 11.5 per cent, according to the industry’s advocate, Mr J. S. Beattie. But the Drivers’ Federation wants 11.5 per cent plus other benefits which would produce an effective increase of up to 21 per cent, reports the Press Association from Wellington.

“That is why the matter is still up in the air,” said Mr Beattie.

“The employers have not reneged; they stick to their offer of last week,” he said. “What is decided at the drivers’ award talks is important not only to the road transport industry, but to other employers also,” said the executive director of the Employers’

Federation (Mr J. W. Rowe).

“Our concern is to avoid wage increases that are of such a size as to prejudice not only the viability of employers generally, but also of the economy as a whole,” he said. “For that reason, the Employers’ Federation is just as interested in what happens in the drivers’, or any other negotiation for that matter, as the Federation of Labour is.” A settlement of 16 to 21 per cent , was clearly too much for employers and the economy to absorb, said Mr Rowe. “1 am not as confident as Sir Thomas Skinner that such a settlement would not be used by other unions to justify similar excessive increases,” he said.