Unions ‘might kill the goose’

Press, 4 November 1978, Page 3

Unions ‘might kill the goose’

PA Wellington The executive director of; the Employers’ Federation! (Mr J. W. Rowe) yesterday! cautioned trade unions! against wrongly exercising! their monopoly powers in the economy. Such actions, he said, would kill the goose that laid the golden egg — their own jobs. In an address 10 an avia-' Ition industry conference at [Nelson, Mr Rowe pinpointed I areas in which he said “the [most powerful and widespread monopolies of all,” [the trade unions, were ithreatening the economy of the country. He listed these as: The use of their “secret weapon” — the blanket coverage of awards — to get a generous settle* ment from weaker employers which bound all employers in the industry. Strikes by small groups of key staff and the invoking of trade-union solidarity to tie up a whole enterprise or industry, inflicting maximum cost on an employer at minimum cost to the workers or union concerned. The taking of a general wage order as a minimum starting point and bargaining above that. “Ultimately,” said. Mr

! Rowe, “strikes and excessive {wage demands will profit I nothing if they destroy the system that made them possible. ! “The trade unions may ! think of employers only as a 'necessary evil but the realI ity is that employers provide jobs. I “Put them out of business and we are on the verge Of a very different form of social order where individual initiative is replaced by State direction and control. I do not think that this is at all what the average New Zealander, or the average trade unionist, wants.” Mr Rowe said that, at present, unemployment and inflation were serious problems in New Zealand. If this were ever to be improved, some forms of wages restraint, voluntary or involuntary, was vital. “Regrettably, governments facing three-yearly election campaigns, and torn between economic and political necessity, are all too prone to vacillate between restrictive controls and stimulatory measures. “Long-term considerations are likely to be disregarded. Yet if we are ever to enjoy a return to high employment and reasonable inflation rates, it is to longterm policies that we must look. Otherwise, it may not be possible for our political and social system to stand the strain,” Mr Rowe said.