Union leaders take pay case to Govt

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 1

Union leaders take pay case to Govt

PA Wellington Union leaders laid their case for a cost-of-living adjustment before the Government yesterday, but the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, is not expected to respond until the middle of next week.

The joint .approach was . made by the Federation of Labour and the Combined State Unions, who presented their detailed submissions during a brief meeting with Mr Muldoon and Government officials at Parliament. Mr Muldoon replied with a paper prepared by his officials, and the parties intend to meet again on Wednesday. The unions have not defined how much they think should be paid in a general movement to compensate for inflation. “The figure can be worked out from what the submissions say,” said the F.O.L. President (Mr W. J. Knox) after the meeting. The discussions were “amicable”, he said, and he was sure that Mr Muldoon would give the submissions full consideration. Mr Muldoon said that he had had a “quick look” at the figures presented by the unions. “They will be difficult to reconcile with the figures I have just given Mr Knox,” said Mr Muldoon.

“But that is what we are going to try to do as soon as possible next week.” Asked if there was any chance that the wage and salary earner would get a cost-of-living adjustment, Mr Muldoon said: “If you put it that way there must be a chance — I won’t tell you how big it is.” The urgency of a wage adjustment was emphasised by the unions in their 20-page submission. It said that the latest March quarter ccftisumers price index showed that prices had increased to a record average annual level of 18.4 per cent. Within that over-all average there had been huge increases that had had a particularly severe effect on people on low incomes, such as single-in-come families, pensioners, and beneficiaries. Food price increases of 25.2 per cent in the year to March, 1980, a 44.5 per cent increase in the cost of fuel and electricity, and a 24.5 per cent rise in public transport costs were cited as examples.

Mr Muldoon said that his officials had studied the position of a married man, with two children, earning the average wage. The study had taken into account the effect of tax changes over the last year and the increased family benefit. “The comparison shows a real increase for the year to April, 1980, of 2.3 per cent in after-tax income,” he said. Mr Muldoon said that his officials had reported that even on a conservative assumption about the outcome of the recent wage round, it appeared that the average wage before tax would now be about $lB2 per week, or 18.5 per cent above the corresponding level in April, 1979. This was almost identical with the movement in the consumers price index in the year to March, he said. “The movement in pri-vate-sector wage rates over the period is probably marginally less, around 17.6 per cent,” Mr Muldoon said.