Protest rallies start today

Press, 11 October 1982, Page 1

Protest rallies start today

PA Hamilton The first of a series of rallies throughout New Zealand by unions protesting against the wage freeze and the Budget income tax moves will be held in Hamilton today. The Federation of Labour and Combined State Unions will be addressed in Hamilton by the president of the F.0.L., Mr W. J. Knox, who will step up the campaign in the next few days with a further nine rallies in Waikato and King Country

towns between October 18 and 21. He will be joined by a Public Service Association economist, Mr Peter Harris, for the first three rallies and the C.S.U.’s assistant secretary, Mr Stephen Grant, for the” remainder. Another eight rallies will be held elsewhere before the F.O.L. and C.S.U. hold a special conference on November 18 to consider ways of securing a general wage order, principles for changing wage-fixing procedures in discussion with em-

ployers and the Government, and approaches for the union movement’s alternative economic strategy. The campaign is part of the unions over-all campaign against cuts in living standards. The F.O.L.’s national campaign co-ordinator, Mr Ken Johnson, said that when the campaign started in June it concentrated on Government spending cuts and on an explanation of why the F.O.L. and C.S.U. rejected the wage-tax trade off.

Since then the wage freeze and Budget tax reductions, which discriminated against lower-paid workers and twoincome families, had added further components to the campaign. Mr Johnson said the campaign’s momentum had been increasing as it went along. The organisers printed 140,000 copies of the campaign’s first news sheet, 280.000 copies of the second, 500,000 of the third, and so far had 400,000 orders for the fourth and latest.