Bill similar to that of 1979

Press, 22 October 1983, Page 3

Bill similar to that of 1979

Parliamentary reporter The Public Service Association Withdrawal of Recognition Bill introduced into Parliament yesterday is virtually the same bill as that introduced by the Government in June, 1979.

On that occasion electricity workers had planned stoppages that would have disrupted generating capacity by 50 per cent. The threatened action by the P.S.A. was over the Government’s planned increase in State house rents for workers with the Electricity Division.

The bill was withdrawn about a month later when the P.S.A. decided not to go ahead with the stoppages. The bill introduced yesterday is different in at

least one particular from the bill introduced in 1979.

Yesterday’s bill allows for “withdrawal of recognition” where any discontinuance of employment with respect to any essential service is brought about wholly or partly by the association or any member or members

The wording of the 1979 bill inserted the words “if’ that discontinuance is “likely to cause serious loss or inconvenience.” Government members of Parliament yesterday said that a former Labour Prime Minister, Mr Norman Kirk, had introduced similar legislation in 1974.

Hansard, the journal of Parliamentary debates, shows that the Harbour Pilotage Emergency Bill was passed in 1974 in one sitting to give Harbour Boards powers to force harbour pilots to work extended hours and week-ends.

Pilots had put a ban on extended and week-end work in protest at a breakdown in wages talks. That bill, however, did not deregister the harbour board pilots. If the P.S.A. is deregistered it will case immediately to be a service organisation with power to negotiate wages and conditions. All its powers under the 1977 State Services Conditions of Employment Act will cease to apply, and it will cease to have status under all other legislation recognising it. All its assets will be vested in the Public Trustee and will be held and administered by him until the Minister recognises a new service organisation in place of the P.S.A., or until the P.S.A. is again recognised as a service organisation, or the assets distributed amongst those who were members of the P.S.A. at the date of withdrawal of recognition.