Bill’s repercussions called drastic

Press, 9 December 1983, Page 4

Bill’s repercussions called drastic

PA Wellington The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr W. J. Knox, returned to his Wellington office yesterday after a trip to Geneva and immediately launched an eleventh-hour attack on the Industrial Law Reform Bill. Mr Knox said that the bill had drastic repercussions for the rights of New Zealand workers but the Government had totally pushed aside this aspect. He described the changes in the bill, as reported back from the select committee, as merely cosmetic. “The changes in the bill

have merely resolved some technical difficulties,” he said. “They have not addressed the question of the need for change or the effects of that change.” Mr Knox said that thinking New Zealanders were increasingly questioning whether a narrow and arbitrary view of individual rights was appropriate in the industrial field. While in Geneva, Mr Knox held discussions with International Labour Organisation officials. He also held talks with representatives of the International Confederation of Free Trade

Unions. He intends to brief his national executive on Tuesday on the results of “long and fruitful discussions.”

Mr Knox presented copies of the original Industrial. Law Reform Bill to 1.L.0. and I.C.F.T.U. officials. He also presented them with copies of F.O.L. submissions on the bill.

Mr Knox again urged I.C.F.T.U. to send immediately a delegation to New Zealand to examine what he said were the New Zealand Government’s “vicious attacks” on basic trade union rights.

Before his departure for Geneva, Mr Knox said he would also ask I.C.F.T.U. to call on other unionists throughout the world not to handle goods made in New Zealand by non-unionists.

“That’s is the role of an international trade union body, to organise support internationally when the rights of working people and their unions are under attack,” Mr Knox said. Mr Knox is the Oceania board member on I.C.F.T.U. In this position he represents trade unionists in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and New Zealand.