Wages front quiet

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 6

Wages front quiet

PA Wellington! The Federation of Labourj executive met yesterday but said nothing about the recommendation it is to make on .'a . possible wage order to the ' F.0.L.. national conference. which starts today. The ; executive held, its usual pre-conference meeting yesterday and discussed how it and the Combined State Unions plan to persuade the Government that wages have not kept pace with the 18.4 per cent inflation rate. After the Government rejected the F.O.L. and Combined State Unions’ approach for an interim wage order, there were calls from the powerful Auckland and Wellington trades councils for two weeks of industrial action.

The president of the F.O.L. (Mr W. J. Knox) made it clear;any such decision would be made by the : conference.

The Government’s alternative— of waiting to see if the June consumer price index uroves the union’s argument that real wages have fallen or of going to a special

(tribunal — are not likely to be acceptable to Auckland land, Wellington conference delegates. They say the June C.P.I. figures will not be available until July or August, when the next wage round will be well under way. The second suggestion means arguing a case that has already been rejected by the Government. Another approach likely to be favoured by the less militant unions is to continue with the tripartite wage policy talks among the F.0.L., the Government and the Employers’ Federation in the hope of negotiating a form of wage indexation. Most of the opening day of the conference will be taken up by Mr Knox’s report, reports from the secretarytreasurer (Mr K. G. Douglas) and a speech by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling). > Isabel Allende, , daughter of the Marxist President of Chile, the late Salvador Allende. will arrive in Wellington this morning. She will address the con-

ference either later today br tomorrow and will call for and receive F.O.L. support for a continued boycott on trade with the “fascist military junta of General Pinochet.”