Unions 'ready to sign pay pact’

Press, 12 February 1979, Page 8

Unions 'ready to sign pay pact’

NZPA London A new voluntary wage-re-straint pact — known as a “concordat” — will be signed by the Government and trade-union leaders on Wednesday this week, the “Observer” newspaper reported yesterday. It said the final document had been “watered down” at the last minute when several senior union leaders threatened not to sign if it contained strict limits on wage increases. According to the “Observer”, the main points of the new agreement were: ■ The need to bring annual wage rises down to 5 per cent by 1982;

An annual consultative meeting before Easter between the Government, unions, and employers to study national economic policy:

New rules by the Trades Union Congress settling

such matters as hiring monopolies and secondary picketing; • Privileged wage conditions for certain “strategic” categories of workers if they voluntarily forfeit the right to strike.

The weekly newspaper commented: "With massive pay demands from workers with real muscle now coming to the fore, it is hard to see how the concordat can help.”

There was hope of settlement in at -least one dispute when 33,000 water workers were offered a 16 per cent pay rise. The offer, well over the Government’s 5 per cent guideline, is bound to raise the hopes of other local-authority workers who this week rejected an offer of 8.8 per cent.

"As far as we are concerned it makes 16 per cent the going rate,” said a union spokesman.