F.O.L. tells Govt not to expect co-operation

Press, 5 November 1983, Page 8

F.O.L. tells Govt not to expect co-operation

PA Wellington The Federation of Labour told the Government yesterday to expect little cooperation in solving industrial disputes if voluntary unionism were implemented.

Speaking at a select committee hearing on the Industrial Law Reform Bill, the president of the Federation of Labour, Mr W. J. Knox, said the role of his organisation in solving disputes was considerable, although seldom publicly acknowledged.

Howeyer, if the bill were passed and disputes occurred at sites with nonunion workers, the Government would be “very, very lucky, if they get any cooperation at all,” he said.,:,

The Legislative Chamber, where Parliament’s old Upper House used to sit,

was crowded for the presentation of the F.O.L.’s long and detailed submissions. Onlookers were advised by the committee chairman, Mr C. B. Townshend, of the need to be silent, but it did not stop several spontaneous bouts of applause and cheering. The F.O.L. queried the timing of the legislation and the Government’s motives for its introduction.

Mr Knox said that ballots were held a few years ago in which about 80 per cent of the nearly half a million workers questioned opted to stay with the present system of union organisation. During the last election campaign the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, said that results of the ballots indicated that voluntary union-

ism was now a “dead issue,” Mr Knox said. He said the F.O.L. saw the bill as “a way of destroying the trade union movement of this country, or to make it State-con-trolled.” The National Government had an appalling record of attacks on the trade union movement and the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, was the most difficult of recent Ministers to deal with, he said.

Mr Knox predicted industrial chaos after implementation of the legislation, caused by disputes between union and non-union members in the same workplaces. In recent years there had been a steady decline in the number of working days lost through strike action, but that trend would almost

certainly be turned round by voluntary unionism. The F.O.L. was totally opposed to all aspects of the Industrial Law Reform Bill. The union movement saw it as “an attack on its right to organise and its ability to be an effective representative of workers in wages and conditions bargaining and in other areas.”

The provisions of the bill were aimed at creating a situation where wages and working conditions of workers could be further depressed, he said. Mr Knox criticised the “freedom of association” banner being flown over the legislation. Freedom did not just cover individual rights, but collective rights as well. The two areas of rights had to be merged “in a civilised manner.”

The F.O.L. secretary Mr K. G. Douglas, said he objected strongly to the present Government but still’ had to pay taxes for it to run the country the way it wanted to. No system would have the agreement of everyone, and the trade" union movement was no exception. Mr Bolger yesterday denied he had ever said the Industrial Law Reform Bill would be unchanged from its original form, regardless of the public submissions received, as was reported last month. His remarks had caused some groups making submissions to the bills select committee to query whether they were wasting their time.