Laws ‘do not stop strikes’

Press, 21 June 1980, Page 5

Laws ‘do not stop strikes’

PA Auckland An Auckland University historian says that New Zealand cannot retrieve its lost reputation as a “country without strikes” simply by legislating against strikes.

He is Associate-Profes-sor L. J. Holt, who was speaking at the first of a series of six lunch-time lectures on New Zealand industrial relations.

Outlining the history of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, abolished in 1973, Professor Holt said

politicians had recently expressed nostalgia for the glories of the old arbitration system.

“I sometimes get the feeling that there is a persistent belief in New Zealand,” he said, “that since a particular act of Parliament and a particular set of institutions gave industrial peace in the past then perhaps a new or modified act, or set of institutions, might do the trick again.” But new Jaws would never solve all industrial relations problems, he said. Attempts to put an end to strikes by outlawing them were more likely to bring the law

into contempt than to achieve its object.” Another speaker, Dr M. E. R. Bassett, the member of Parliament for Te Atatu, said that while it could be argued a return to a permanent pool of unemployed in the late 1970 s had strengthened the employers’ hand’at the point of negotiation, experience suggested otherwise.

Skills remained at a premium with employers anxiously prepared to settle disputes at levels as near, if not nearer, to the point of union demand as 10 years ago. A return to the Arbitration Act by itself would guarantee nothing unless

the Government was prepared to take a tough line and enforce settlements and disputes by compulsory arbitration. Even full-scale confrontation, which would eventually be necessary, would settle nothing in the long term, Dr Bassett said.

“There is no panacea for industrial wage settlement,” he said. The last 50 years had shown that the most successful policy to deal with industrial disputes was a judicious blend between government and employer firmness and welfare legislation and tax reforms,” said Dr Bassett.