THE PRESS SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1982. Conciliation ban is bad

Press, 21 August 1982, Page 14

THE PRESS SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1982. Conciliation ban is bad

Trade unionists can be expected to protest against the Government’s decision yesterday to freeze all awards for the duration of the freeze on incomes. The intention of the amendment to the wage freeze regulations may be sensible enough. If wages are to be frozen, agreements reached in conciliation could not be permitted to give concealed increases in income. This does not justify a Government decision to stop all conciliation hearings between employers and trade union representatives. If the Government believes that it has the machinery to police successfully the ban on price increases, it should surely have felt confident that illegal wage increases could have been stopped as well. Instead, by banning all conciliation talks,. the Government removes the prospect that matters other than- income may be discussed or changed by employers

and trade unions. Trade unionists will feel they have little incentive now to make the freeze on incomes work; many may feel that they have a strong incentive to see the regulations overturned, whatever the effect might, be on prices, inflation, or employment. The success of a freeze on wages and prices has always required a good deal of public co-operation. The announcement yesterday by the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, will erode the co-operation of an important group in the community. By attempting to plug a hole in the regulations, before the hole had begun to leak, the Government is giving an extra and unjustified stir to an industrial relations pot that is already close to bubbling over. Agreements on pay could surely have been policed without going so far as to stop award negotiations entirely.