When the Pony Express breaks out of harness

Press, 2 October 1979, Page 18

When the Pony Express breaks out of harness

Bv J

A. K. GRANT

The affair of the Canter-bury-Westland (excluding Beckenham) Pony Express Operatives’ award took a new turn yesterday. The Pony Express employers and the union had agreed to submit the award to the Arbitration Court at the request of the Government, after the Government had vetoed an agreement arrived at by the parties giving the Pony Express operatives an increase of 2.8 per cent, plus all the free hay they could eat.

The Government said it would not countenance an increase of more than 2 per cent This in spite of the fact that inflation is currently running at 36 per cent. "The reason why inflation is running at 36 per cent,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, before his departure for anywhere but New Zealand, “is because people like the Pony Express operatives keep asking for 2.8 per cent.” Mr Muldoon left the whole complicated matter in the hands of the Minister of Such Work As Is Available, Mr Bulger, and it was he who introduced a dramatic new’ element into the dispute yesterday by announcing that if the Arbitration Court awarded the Pony Express operatives more than the Government's limit of 2 per cent, its members would be stripped of their jobs, deprived of their pensions, and made to work as filing clerks in the Magistrate's Court at Ohakune.

“This is not to suggest that the Government does not have the utmost confidence In j t * le Arbitration Court,” said Mr Bulger to a crowded press conference. “After all, we set it up, although unfortunately the Boss — I mean the Prime Minister — forgot to tell me why before he went overseas. Anyway, as I say, j e have the utmost confi°“nce in it provided it meets the entirely reasonable re?,L, lrement of doing precisely w ”a’ it is told. fact that we keep nul- ) ng its decision by threats ations is to' be seen k S . an ®*“°de of teethconfiH ub but I have every a atthe Court will tt e down and be seen with rnm t 'i es t 0 be arriving at tha C^ OrnP i et * independence It bv the^ro’ 10 ” 5 re< l u *red of • the Government. What

we will not tolerate, however, is the Court being persuaded by either employers or unions to arrive at decisions which are contrary to the national interest, and I use the word national advisedly.” As might be expected, this announcement provoked a storm of protest, several trees being uprooted in Kelburn while a number of yachts in Days Bay broke loose from their moorings. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Growling, called Mr Bulger “the biggest disaster since the Tarawera earthquake. or even the Napier volcano.” The F.O.L. called for „ new' General Strike, to replace the old General Strike which was in need of an overhaul. Both Pony Express union leaders and employers condemned Mr Bulger’s remarks, the union leaders claiming that the Minister was fortunately destroying the Arbitration Court system singlehanded, while Mr Ivor Mercedes, president of the Pony Express Employers’ Association, told reporters that Mr Bulger was not a patch on the late Tom Shand, who really understood industrial relations. and, what’s more could have been a scratch golfer if he had had the time to put into the game. And a stopwork meeting of filing clerks at rhe Magistrate’s Court in Ohakune resolved to lay down their files if members of the Arbitra-

tion Court were sent there to take their jobs away from them.

Fortunately matters calmed down somewhat as a result of the intervention of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Welsh-Dressers. He explained that there would in fact be no pressure brought to bear by the Government on the members of the Arbitration Court, and that Mr Bulger’s apparent assertion that there would be was all the result of a misunderstanding arising through a mistaken interpretation by Mr Bulger of a Radio New Zealand programme.

Mr Bulger had turned on the radio, heard the word “jack-up,” and concluded immediately that this was a reference to a plot on the part of the Pony Express employers apd operatives to connive or collude to present a bogus • submission to the Court, so as to evade the Government’s guidelines. In fact the programme was a motoring programme, wherein listeners were being advised that after changing a tyre they should always fold their jack up neatly and put it away in the proper place. Mr Welsh-Dressers said that Mr Bulger’s was the sort of mistake which it was very easy to make in the heat of the moment. He said that Mr Bulger was now resting comfortably and was very appreciative of all the flowers which had been sent to him. '