Feltex solution ‘against law’

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 2

Feltex solution ‘against law’

Parliamentary reporter The Feltex carpet workers’ solution to their voluntary unionism strike is against the law, according to the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger. Mr Bolger has rejected as illegal, part of the agreement whereby workers could be exempted from union membership on the ground of conscientious objection. He said yesterday that the union had no authority to judge whether a person was conscientiously opposed to joining a union. “The union might want to adopt that as its policy, but quite simply that is not the law,” he said. “That is not something that the union has the authority or the capacity to determine.” Asked whether the Feltex workers’ solution was still a “closed shop,” Mr Bolger said that he was not informed precisely on what was happening. “But it is very clear that the union backed off, at least to some extent, from its earlier position,” he said. Nevertheless, he maintained there was no capacity within the law for a union to set itself up as a conscientious appeal author-

ity, determining who might or might not belong to a union. Nor could he see any logic in appointing conscientious objection tribunals. “There is no logic in that proposition, because people have the right to move out without having to establish they have a conscientious objection to trade unions. They have the right to move out now on whatever ground they choose, and so the need for a tribunal clearly does not exist,” he said. Mr Bolger said disputes were “not surprising” as a new environment had been in place only a month. “Realism says that there will be some teething difficulties and there will be some skirmishes — and that is what we are having at the moment,” he said. The law was being monitored, but not with any view to amendments. Although he would meet unions and employers if they wanted to discuss amendments, he had no proposal to amend the legislation. He also said it was clear from information he had that “significant numbers” of New Zealanders were already opting not to belong to a union. Mr Bolger maintained that the Industrial Law Reform Act, which introduced

voluntary unionism on February 1, was workable. “I think it is working very well, given it has been in place for less than a month,” he said. In a separate development, the member of Parliament for Fendalton, Mr P. R. Burdon, has attacked the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Palmer, as indulging in “political fantasy” for criticism Mr Palmer levelled at the voluntary unionism law. Mr Palmer had said experience showed the law was totally impractical and unworkable, and he accused the Government of promoting strikes and stoppages by insisting on the passage of an unworkable law." Mr Burdon said compulsory unionism would never again be imposed on New Zealand. “It has already clearly introduced an element of responsibility and caution into our industrial relations that has been absent for too long,” he said. “We will not see, I suggest, a repetition of the Auckland Airport strike that provoked the Tania Harris march, or the rolling strikes that we came to expect from the Drivers’ Union and the Engineers’ Union as an annual event.