Mr Rowling likes F.O.L.’s living wage’

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 2

Mr Rowling likes F.O.L.’s living wage’

; PA Wellington The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) yesterday welcomed the Federation of Labour’s application for a minimum living wage, but warned that it would be rendered useless if followed by a scramble of relativity bargaining. The E.O.L. application to the Arbitration Court seeks a minimum wage of $147 a week before tax under the General Wage Orders Act. In an address to the Wellington -Central Rotary Club, Mr Rowling congratulated the F.O.L. for tackling the issue head-on. “There are far too many people about who are simply shutting their eyes to the existance of growing relative poverty and hardship in this country and the tensions it ine"it'>hiy rraatpe.” he said. There was also far too much concentration on the so-called average wage, without recognising th- ■ 68 oer cent of the work-force in fact got less than the iverage wage.

“The concept of the decent living is something that has been virtuallv wiped out in this country in recent vears,” Mr Rowling said. “It is my firm belief that we cannot- hope to hold our economy on course through the difficult period ahead unless we start building that

concept back into both our economic and social thinking.” But Mr Rowling, said the acceptance of the principle was one thing —the way in which it could be carried through was another. “For example, the establishment of a higher minimum wage, as now being put forward by the F.0.L., could be rendered virtually meaningless if it simply touches off a scramble of relativity bargaining that feeds directly into inflation,” he said. “It ’’so meaningless if, in a rough economic climate, it sim r| iv ‘“’ns vulnerable industries to the wall and more on to the unemployment heap.” Mr Rowling said the responsibility for ensuring a stable economic climate fell on three groups — on the Government to hold its own costs and battle on to contain inflation; on the com-

mercial community to act responsibly within a firm and fair system of commercial law; and on the work-force to accept that wage escalation must be matched by increasing production if benefits were to

be genuine and lasting. Earlier, Mr Rowling spelled out what he saw as the critical problems confronting industrial relations in New Zealand today. They were the collapse of

the country’s arbitration system, the increasingly intolerable position of the lower paid worker, the role of the Government, and the intrusion of purely political considerations into the industrial scene. He asserted that the 1968 nil general wage order destroyed confidence in the ability of the Arbitration Court to protect the interests of the wage and salary earner and led to a period of increasingly tough direct bargaining. Since 1998 there had been growing Government involvement in disputes and a disturbing trend toward the use of the strike weapon as a negotiating tool. “I cannot accept that the best way through an industrial disagreement, or any disagreement, is by one side, or both sides, attempting to batter each other into _ submission with the public in the middle,” Mr Rowling

said. He said that the Government’s authority in the industrial relations field had been seriously weakened in recent years by the intrusion of “blatantly party political considerations.”

Mr Rowling said it was not the slightest use anybody talking about new directions for the economy unless the key problems were isolated, and practical solutions found.