Illegal’ claims put wage talks in jeopardy

Press, 7 March 1983, Page 2

Illegal’ claims put wage talks in jeopardy

PA Auckland The Government could withdraw from wage-fixing talks with unions and employers because of "illegal" claims for an immediate $2O a week pay rise by striking workers at AHI. said the Prime Minister. Mr Muldoon on Saturday.

The Government, unions, and employers last month began discussions on wagefixing procedures to follow the end of the wage freeze in June.

Mr Muldoon said in Auckland that he did not think the Government should continue discussions while the Auckland Trades Council was taking what he described as political, rather than industrial, action. Asked about the $2O pay claim, Mr Muldoon said: “They will not get it. It is illegal.”

The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr W. T. Knox, said in Wellington that the federation would not be “pushed around" by the Prime Minister, the Government, or the employers. “We have already lodged a claim with the Government in November last year after a special conference for a $2O across-the-board increase,” he said. “We are not letting that claim be pushed aside by the Prime Minister.” Mr Knox said that the F.O.L. had asked Mr Muldoon why the Government would

not discuss a $2O pay rise and had not been told the reason. The director of the Auckland Employers Association, Mr Douglas Stewart, said that he believed that the AHI strike was not supported by other union members employed by the company. He said that the action by the Trades Council and the strikers was misdirected because AHI could not by law negotiate any pay rise while the wage freeze was in force. Mr Stewart said that the strike’s effect on company profits, the loss of wages, and the run-on effects meant that "someone, somewhere,” would lose his job, and not necessarily at AHI. Mr G. H. Andersen, president of the Auckland Trades Council, was earlier reported as saying that AHI had been chosen for the industrial action because it had enjoyed , good profits recently, and i could afford to pay the extra > $2O a week. The unions’ $2O a week ( campaign will be pushed fur- i ther at a meeting of officials, < organisers, and delegates in i Auckland on March 25. Up to j 1000 are expected to attend to plan further tactics in support of the claim. The walk-out at the sheetmetal factory came I after on-off industrial action j by union members at another ‘ large AHI plant, the metal containers division, during last week.