Tasman unions, management taken to task

Press, 11 February 1983, Page 2

Tasman unions, management taken to task

PA Rotorua Uncommunicative management and “guerrilla tactics” of unions at the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company plant have been attacked by Mr R. R. Trotter, chairman ’of Fletcher Challenge, Ltd, Tasman's parent company. Mr Trotter, saying he believed differences between unions and management were inhibiting New Zealand’s export drive, cited conflicts in the Kawerau mill. He was addressing a meeting organised by the Whakatane Chamber of Commerce.

Tasman was perilously close to becoming uncompetitive on the international market, said Mr Trotter. If it was to survive, the closest collaboration between management and unions was essential.

“It is management's job to improve communications and trust and involve people in decision-making. In all these areas management has not done enough,” he said. Unions, for their part, often clung to attitudes of confrontation, rooted in the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. Irresponsible black bans and protest stoppages achieved nothing, but weakened the company’s ability to pay.. r “In the last six months, when Tasman’s mill operations were unprofitable, such guerrilla tactics cost Tasman $5 million in net profit,” Mr Trotter said.

The real wage increases gained by Tasman unions between October, 1972, and October last year, exceeded 3 per cent a year, more than double the national average wage increase. Today the average wage at Tasman was $25,000.

“Clearly, ■ wage increases of this size could not continue indefinitely without Tasman’s cost competitiveness‘being jeopardised,” said Mr Trotter.

; He did not propose that industrial troubles at the plant were aimed at harming Tasman. Rather, he believed they arose from the preoccu-

pation of union leadership to win a bigger share of a shrinking economic cake.

“Our unions within New Zealand need to reassess how they should best serve the interests of their members. “What they and management should be doing is assessing how industrial disputes can be minimised, how over-manning can be eliminated, how the latest technology can be introduced, and how staff can be motivated to identify with their company and its success,” Mr Trotter said.

Management must ensure that union leaders were better informed to enable them to understand why such things as new technology were essential to efficiency, export competitiveness, and ultimately, economic survival.

“In North American our competitors are producing 1100 cubic metres of sawn timber per man per year. At Kawerau we are achieving 500 cubic metres, well under half of what can be achieved with automation.

“Our sawmilling will have to become more automated, or otherwise close,” Mr Trotter said.