Govt acts to cut Kinleith pay increases

Press, 26 February 1980, Page 1

Govt acts to cut Kinleith pay increases

PA Wellington In two tough moves yesterday the Government acted to block employers from meeting union demands.

At Kinleith hopes of production seemed dashed when the Government announced that it will reduce a. pay-agreement worked out after an eight-week strike.

The Government has decided to pass regulations making it illegal for employers to meet boiler attendants’ claims for an $B---week registration payment.

The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) told a news conference after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that a regulation would be passed under the Remuneration Act to set the Kinleith core rate “about the level of $4.69 an hour.” According to Mr Muldoon, this was the offer made by the company last week. It was then “jacked up” in week-end discussions to about $4.81 an hour, he said. Mr Muldoon said $4.69 an hour represented the Auckland core rate, plus 5 per cent to cover extra production at Kinleith because the plant’s workers, “with one small exception,” had agreed to work right through the year. Mr Muldoon described the Government’s figure, which would be set today as soon as the regulation could be drafted, as “reasonable” and “eminently fair.” J It represented an increase of a little more than 18 per cent and, with bonuses on top, would give Kinleith workers about $5.50 an hour, he said. After a meeting of millworkers at Tokoroa earlier yesterday, the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr W. J. Knox) said the dispute could spread to other pulp and paper workers if the Government interfered in the settlement worked out on Sunday. . Kinleith workers were determined not to resume work unless they got the

rise agreed in negotiations, Mr Knox said. The millworkers will meet again at 11 a.m. today.

"The general manager of N.Z. Forest Products spoke to Mr Muldoon this morning and asked the Government not to interfere in the settlement,” Mr Knox said.

“We negotiated for 9| hours last night and made a satisfactory settlement. Now the Government says it may restrict what it sees as a too high a settlement.

“The time has come for the Government to realise this cannot go on. This is not free wage bargaining.’’ Asked what action was available to the F.O.L, and unions if the Government pegged back the wage rise, Mr Knox said the men would stay out. The men were seething — “They’ll stay out for another seven weeks if they have to,” he said. The managing director of Forest Products (Mr D. O. Walker) confirmed from Auckland last evening that he was in touch with Mr Muldoon after settlement was reached and said he expressed the hope to Mr Muldoon that the Government would not step in. Mr Muldoon did not indicate that he would but expressed concern that settlements of this kind might have national effects, Mr Walker said. He said the basis of the final agreement was influenced by a wage settlement for Tasman workers last Thursday. Forest Products recognised that it had to be reasonably close to the Tasman settlement “because the position has always been that way.”

Forest Products estimates that it has lost $500,000 a day since the mills closed on January 7 — $25 million so far —

and chaos has been predicted when paper shortages hit businesses. Mr Muldoon said he hoped the workers would see that the Government’s action was reasonable. He said the Government’s action was in line with what it had been saying for a long time. Answering a question, Mr Muldoon said the Kinleith workers would, under the Government’s action, get less than Tasman Pulp and Paper workers at the Kawerau mills.

Boiler attendants, whose steam appliances are vital to industry, are part of the engine drivers’ union, whose secretary is the Socialist Unity Party’s leader, Mr G. H. Anders sen.

During conciliation proceedings last year they claimed 20c an hour as a registration payment in recognition of their qualifications and importance to industry. When the Government warned it would impose a wage freeze if they pursued the claim through national award talks, the boiler attendants withdrew the claim and decided to take it up first with Auckland -employers as a group and then with individual employers. Since then they have conducted a campaign of industrial action in pursuit of the claim. “Andersen and his S.U.P. people have been at this for months — direct action trying to pick off small firms,” Mr Muldoon said yesterday. “The time has come when no further warnings afe going to be given,There will be a regulation,” he said. Mr Muldoon said the regulation would make registration payments illegal — “so that they cannot be made.”