Aust. P.M.'s pointer to building sector

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 15

Aust. P.M.'s pointer to building sector

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney

The Australian Prime Minister, Mr Jlawke, appears to have given rogue builders’ unions a way of getting some pay rises without disrupting Arbitration Commission talks on wage fixing.

He told Parliament that wages in the building sector were not to go beyond what the commission decides, but that some agreement could be reached in the industry on allowance.

The Building Workers Industrial Union state secretary, Mr Stan Sharkey, said

that the move could be acceptable, depending on the whole package to be put to the building unions at a special conference tomorrow. The building unions became the first flies in the ointment of Mr Hawke’s economic summit accord, when they struck for a $4O---week pay rise and a 36hour working week, in the face of the accord which called for wage restraint and suppression of sectional interests. But while the New South Wales section of the builders’ union movement saw some merit in Mr Hawke’s comments, the 8.W.1.U.’s national secretary, Mr Pat Clancy, did not. He . cited the accord between the Labour Party before it became the Government and the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions as the basis for the builders’ claims, and said that the Prime Minister’s contact with the top level of

the A.C.T.U. would not see him through. Mr Hawke has also set a figure of 3 to 4 per cent on any wage rise this year, apd while moderate unions seem to agree with this, it appears to have put his Government on a collision course with the toughest elements of the Union movement. Apart from the builders, this includes the metal workers who are becoming restive as contractions in their industry result in growing retrenchments. In another development, it was reported that the Government was negoiating with the oil industry workers over an 8 per cent wage claim agreed to before the wage freeze came into force and the subject of strikes called off for the Federal elections. The reports say that the A.C.T.U. is prepared to guarantee it as an “island” claim which will not flow on to the rest of the wage process.