THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1983. Mr Muldoon and Mr Knox

Press, 27 July 1983, Page 14

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1983. Mr Muldoon and Mr Knox

If the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions wants to send a commission of inquiry to look at the trade union movement in New Zealand, it should be encouraged to do so. Members of such a commission might be surprised to find a country where union membership, in the great majority of industries, is compulsory; where unions enjoy a high degree of freedom from interference by the State; and where the industrial law’s penalties are rarely sought for apparent breaches.

The International Confederation, the 1.C.F.T.U., links industrial organisations in almost 100 countries, including most of the Western democracies. Very few of those countries have compulsory union membership — the “closed shop” — to the degree that it is enforced in New Zealand. Some of the members, outside Western Europe and North America, have trade union organisations and leaders subject to State direction and control. The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr Knox, has come back from an I.C.F.T.U. conference with assertions that trade union rights in New Zealand are being infringed by the Government, and that trade union leaders are being threatened. Foreign inquirers into these things might well end up thoroughly puzzled by Mr Knox’s complaints.

Mr Knox has been abroad for more than two months. No sooner had he returned than he and the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, were exchanging insults in public again. Industrial relations in New Zealand were not always conducted in an atmosphere of sweet reasonableness while Mr Knox was away; nevertheless, the country was generally spared public exchanges that shed more heat than light on the matters in dispute. Instead of reacting so sharply to Mr Knox’s announcement of an international inquiry, Mr Muldoon would do better to welcome the inquiry and to make available such assistance as it might need. Few Governments in the world show such benevolent restraint towards trade union activity as the New Zealand Government. The only loser from an inquiry is likely to be Mr Knox, who would probably find his grounds for

complaint cut from beneath him. Mr Knox and Mr Muldoon, at least in public, have a most unfortunate effect on one another. At times, each appears to set out to provoke the other; each is likely to react sharply, even rudely, to the other’s public statements. They differ, however, in that Mr Knox sometimes gives the impression of speaking without due consideration for the implications of his remarks; Mr Muldoon, even when his anger seems spontaneous, is likely to have considered carefully the effects of what he says. The exchanges might be dismissed as nothing more than part of the stuff of democratic politics, with the people’s representative, and the workers’ representative, each standing up for what they believe in. Unfortunately, in New Zealand at present, the exchanges are likely to have a more harmful result.

The Government, the Federation of Labour, and employers’ representatives, have still to reach an agreement about the means of fixing incomes that will follow an end to the freeze on incomes and prices. Harsh public exchanges do not make it easier for Mr Muldoon and Mr Knox, and their respective colleagues, to sit down in private in a spirit of conciliation and compromise. Perhaps the Prime Minister and the federation’s president believe that by barking in public they can persuade their supporters in the community that not too much is being given away by any concessions made in private.

The barking is too loud and too frequent. From the Prime Minister, especially, a studied calm would be more dignified and more appropriate. It might also make the private negotiations a little easier, especially when the Government should serve more as an arbiter between competing industrial interests, rather than play into Mr Knox’s hands by seeming to dictate methods of wage fixing — and so give credence to the assertion that trade union rights are being infringed. Without angry retorts from the Prime Minister, Mr Knox’s public statements might be more easily assessed for their true worth by the community and the trade union movement.