F.O.L. plans to force Govt to grant quick increase

Press, 7 May 1980, Page 1

F.O.L. plans to force Govt to grant quick increase

| PA

Wellington

Delegates to the Federation of Labour I national conference in Wellington yesterday j gave overwhelming, foot-stamping support to | new strategy designed to force the Government ■to grant a speedy cost-of-living increase.

I The plan includes stoppages and meetings of ■workers, pensioners, and beneficiaries. The tactics were unfolded the president of the F.O.L. (Mr W. J. Knox), red rose in the buttonhole of his blue-grey suit, to 365 'delegates in the smokefilled auditorium of the Wellington Town Hall. The plan received immediate backing from. the chairman of the Combined State Unions (Mr D. H. Thorp), present as a toptable conference guest. All unions affiliated to the F.O.L. will be asked to endorse protest stoppages which will be directed by ;the F.O.L. national executive, and will be held either on a regional basis, or industry by industry. Union negotiators will be called together on July 16 to plan further tactics to ensure “a protection and improvement of living standards and development of a centralised strategy for the 1980 award round.” District councils will call meetings of F.O.L. and C.S.U. affiliates, together with representatives of pensioners and' beneficiaries, to discuss: — Repeal of the Remuneration Act. Support for the minimum living wage concept and restoration of the wage order system to hear such a case. Support for an immediate cost-of-living adjustment. A long resolution endorsed with no dissenting vote condemned the Government for “its callous disregard of the savage destruction of living standards’* in rejecting the recent joint F.O.L. and C.S.U. approach for a cost-of-living increase. 1 The conference totally jejected the Government’s

offer to reconsider the application after the June consumers price index comes out — probably at the end of July — or else set up a special wages tribunal, though the tribunal suggestion received some support from two delegates, Mr A. J. Neary, representing the North Island Electrical Workers’ Union, and Mr W. Clements, representing the Printers’ Union. The conference also endorsed a February 28 F.O.L. national council decision calling for direct approaches to employers for wage increases as an immediate interim measure. A “fortnight of activity in defence of living standards” will be called late this month or early in June to put this plan into action. Mr Knox said the F.O.L. had no intention of entering into tripartite talks with the Government and employers to allow the Government to fix wages — “no way.” Union research had proved to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), to his Treasury people, and to his “thick” tank that wage and salary earners had fallen behind cost increases by up to 13.3 per cent,' but the Prime Minister had rejected this, Mr Knox said. Mr Thorp told the conference he believed the C.S.U. would reject the Government’s options on wages, as had F.O.L. delegates. “We will support fully the campaign suggested by the F.O.L. executive for meetings throughout New Zealand to make our members aware of what the situation is and make the Government in turn aware of the actions

that they must take,” he said. “The P.S.A. (Mr Thorp is also president of the Public Service Association) had a meeting which endorsed the proposal fully and would hope to be getting together with various trades councils to organise meetings and a general campaign of action,” Mr Thorp said. The secretary of the F.O.L. (Mr K. G. Douglas) said the federation’s main thrust should now be directed towards seeking a minimum living wage by securing the repeal of the Remuneration Act and the restoration of general wage order machinery.“The situation that we are now in requires a firm demonstration by the working people of this country that they have had enough of the Muldoon miracle,” he said. He warned employers they could expect cost-of-living claims to be incorporated in wage negotiations if there was no answer from the Government by July 16. The F.O.L.’s vice-presid-ent (Mr J. Boomer) said the executive had recommended a broad-based strategy and was keeping its options open because it did not trust the Government. He suggested the combined unions’ case for a general pay increase was doomed to failure before it started because the outcome was in the hands of Mr Muldoon and the Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger). “What we have done with this proposal is to try to get these people out of the act altogether,” Mr Boomer said. Mr Knox’s address, Page 3