Class labels deplored

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 19

Class labels deplored

PA Wellington “I deplore the continued use of terms such as “the workers” and “the bosses.” Few expressions could be more calculated to set man against man and house against house.” the executive vice-presi-dent of the Chambers of Commerce, (Mr A. Simm) told the Johnsonville Rotary Club.

“This attitude is doctrinaire and desperately out of date. It will not fit tne society we are trying to build in New Zealand — a .nation with a wholly

national identity,” Mr Simm said. “It is the responsibility of men such as the president of the Federation of Labour to give leadership, 'to stop talking about Workers and the class struggle, to stop'segregating some ill-defined group which he calls ‘bosses’ and get down to uniting the country. “The control of the source of capital is no longer in the hands of what were once called capitalists, but the control of the source of labour is

firmly in the hands of a class in our society whom we have not yet given a collective name,” he said. “Their responsibility is quite frightening. The effect of their decisions will be creative or destructive, according to their mood. If their controls over the source of labour slip into the hands of persons antagonistic to New Zealand and to its future, then I suggest that you will not recognise our society when you come to look down on it from the sky in the years ahead.”