Union action planned as wage fight unsettled

Press, 6 May 1983, Page 1

Union action planned as wage fight unsettled

Wellington reporter and Press Association National industrial action looms after the Federation of Labour and the Government failed to end their wage-bargaining impasse yesterday.

A meeting at the Beehive between the federation’s national executive and the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, served only to confirm the federation’s resolve for a campaign of go-slows and stoppages. The F.O.L.’s president, Mr W. J. Knox, said that the campaign should start before June. Individual unions could decide to take their own action before the campaign started. The federation conference in Wellington overwhelmingly endorsed yesterday a national executive recommendation for industrial action in support of a $2O a week wage rise and an end to the freeze. Mr Knox took that stand to Mr Muldoon and told him that workers had rejected Government options for moving out of the 12-month clampdown on wages.

Mr Knox later told the conference that Mr Muldoon had responded bluntly to the proposals. “He would not even look at them,” Mr Knox said. “A wage adjustment is required now; a continuation of the wage freeze is unacceptable; the right to negotiate with employers is demanded,” the F.O.L. had told Mr Muldoon. Mr Muldoon said the F.O.L. had put forward alternative proposals which demanded the freeze be lifted and that “it have the opportunity to negotiate in what really is a new wage round.” “That is not possible,” he said. Mr Muldoon said the conference resolution was “crazy,” but that he had left the door open for the F.O.L. to work with Government officials on producing finan-

cial relief for low-income earners. Mr Muldoon indicated the Government would not act if there was limited industrial action. “If some group of workers is foolish enough to take a day off and lose a day’s pay because their trade union secretary tells them to there is little we can do about that,” he said. “But if there is widespread industrial action, that raises a much more important question.” The industrial action planned by the F.O.L. was to include go-slows and stoppages of 24 or 48 hours on a continuing basis. Mr Knox said the executive would now decide the form of action. However, it was “not going to have a confrontation with the Government.” Mr Knox said the door

was still open for further talks with the Government, and he felt Mr Muldoon wanted those talks. “He does not want action, he is worried about it,” he said. Mr Knox said, however, the “heat” was on the federation leadership to “get out and lead.” Meetings throughout New Zealand had been in favour of some form of action. Mr Knox said he had warned the Prime Minister against turning down his organisation’s proposals. “He has conned our people, the trade union movement, wage and salary earners, on the basis of saying it would be a 12 months freeze,” he said. Mr Muldoon said his caucus had. yesterday unanimously supported the Government’s options which include a 2 per cent wage

rise and extension of the freeze. He thought the freeze should run until Christmas instead of ending as scheduled on June 22. No dissent had arisen in caucus about this. The Government would now look at its options and decide what it would do about the freeze’s scheduled end, Mr Muldoon said. “We have got about six weeks to do that. “The decision of the caucus was that we must stick to the wage-price freeze, get this rate of inflation cemented in, and then get on to bringing interest rates down accordingly.” The Government had contingency plans to deal with action that might arise from the F.O.L. resolution, and would do whatever was appropriate. Asked if the action could

include using State of Emergency regulations, Mr Muldoon said, “Obviously, if the occasion arises.” He said industrial action would probably torpedo the tripartite wage talks. “We certainly would not sit down to tripartite wage talks while we are having a rash of destructive strikes,” he said. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange, said he did not support the decision to take industrial action. He yesterday warned that such action would suit the Prime Minister’s purposes. However, Mr Lange said the F.O.L. represented “people who are very aggrieved and very bitter and who are getting poorer by the month. I can understand that response.” “I would urge the Prime Minister to consider

whether the interests of New Zealand will be served by a continuing guerrillatype confrontation provoked by this Government for its political ends,” Mr Lange said. The executive director of the Employers’ Federation, Mr J. W. Rowe, said the F.O.L. appeared to have turned its back on any form of the wage-fixing system which applied before the freeze. Mr Rowe said that the attitude was astounding, as weaknesses in the system had made the freeze necessary.