Union objection test may loom

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 1

Union objection test may loom

By

GLENN HASZARD,

industrial reporter

Mr Trevor Brott, the Christchurch Feltex carpet mill worker whose resignation from the Woollen Workers’ Union last month led to a week-long strike which ended when he rejoined the union, may test the union’s new policy in conscientious objection. One of the conditions under which Mr Brott returned to the union on February 27 was that the Feltex woollen workers rescind their earlier decision to maintain a closed shop, where union members would not work with nonunion members. Another condition was that the union establish a system of conscientious objection similar to that which prevailed nationally until the new industrial relations law came into effect on February 1. Such a union-organised system is not illegal in itself, though it has no basis in law. It could feasibly

work de facto satisfactorily provided any person applying for conscientious objection were prepared to accept the outcome. If a person did not accept the decision and .remained out of the union, he would retain his legal right to take action for damages if he suffered any loss or faced intimidation or coercion. A spokesman in the Labour Department’s head office in Wellington said that while there was nothing necessarily illegal in the setting up of a union committee to hear applications for conscientious objection, it would be illegal if the union used such a system to enforce a closed shop. Workers had a statutory right to opt out of a union and unions had no right to erode that freedom of choice. Nor were unions allowed to “unduly influence” a worker’s choice of whether to join a union. The Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, said last month

that unions setting up their own panels to determine union membership were breaching the undueinfluence provisions of the voluntary-unionism law. The national secretary of the Woollen Workers’ Union, Mr Paddy O’Flanagan, confirmed yesterday that he had received a letter from Mr Brott, but he declined to reveal the content of the letter or elaborate on how the union intended to select its conscientious objection committee. Mr Brott also declined to comment. When union membership was made compulsory in 1936 there was no provision for exemption on conscientious grounds. In 1948 a petition was presented to Parliament by a Mr R. E. Harrison and others, seeking exemption on the ground of religious beliefs. As a result of this and talks that followed, a 1951 amendment to the law provided for exemption on religious grounds.

Compulsory unionism was replaced by the system of qualified and unqualified preference in 1961, and at the same time the ground for exemption was extended to include any conscientious belief, whether of a religious nature or not. In the year to March, 1982, there were 266 applications for exemption. The committee granted 191 certificates of exemption and declined 14. One hundred and fifty-six of the applicants had never been union members. About 75 per cent of the applicants applied on religious grounds. Under the law as it stood until February 1, conscientious belief was defined as any conscientious belief honestly, sincerely, and personally held, whether or not on religious grounds. A conscientious objection committee of three was appointed for a three-year term by the Ministry of Labour. At the time of its last hearing, at the end of

last year, it comprised a retired Labour Department official, Mr Jack Fouhy; a clergyman, the Rev. Malcolm Highet; and a retired union branch secretary, Mr Jack Crummery. Mr Fouhy, who was chairman for five years, said from Wellington that the committee never made its

decisions in accordance with any written guidelines and it found the act’s definition of the grounds for exemption difficult to interpret. However, the committee established its guiding principles “fairly quickly” as it became familiar with the nature of the applications. “What it boiled down to was that an individual (on the committee) had to come down to a gut decision and ask himself — is this bloke doing what his conscience dictates to him?” said Mr Fouhy. In recent years some of the grounds for exemption were based on opposition to various aspects of Federation of Labour or union policy, such as clauses of the working women’s charter. Some of these applications were granted, but others were not, he said.

“Inevitably it came back to the individual case and what convictions he or she was able to produce,’.’ he said. , . Not even the applications on religious grounds were “rubber stamp” affairs. Many of those applying on religious grounds were young people, and they often found the procedure of appearing before the com- 1 mittee a “terrifying ordeal” 1 Unions bad a statutory I right to appear at the hear- 1 ings and to cross-examine I applicants. Some unions op- < posed almost all applica- i tions, others opposed some i and were prepared to sup- 1 port others, while some 1

unions did not even attend hearings. Mr Fouhy said he believed that before conscientious objection was permitted some unions allowed objectors to stay out of their union as long as they paid the equivalent of the union’s annual subscription into the union’s welfare fund. Mr Fouhy joined the Pensions Department in 1936 and after war service joined the National Service Department, which was amalgamated with the Labour Department in 1947. He rose through the career structure of the department, becoming assistant secretary (immigration) from the end of 1975 until he. retired in February, 1977.