Pay agreement Hong way off

Press, 14 May 1984, Page 2

Pay agreement Hong way off

Agreement on a longterm wage fixing system was still a long way off, the vice-president of the Federation of Labour, Ms Sonia Davies, said in Christchurch yesterday. The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, had recently commented that there was “not too much” between the Government and the F.O.L.

But after 30 meetings of the long-term wage fixing committee, there were still a number of fundamental issues in the way of an agreement.

The F.O.L. had made some very real concessions, but they were still not enough to satisfy the Government and the Employers’ Federation.

Issues such as award protection for low-paid

workers, and the right to bargain with employers were enshrined in F.O.L. policies and were the basic principles of the trade union movement. The F.O.L. could not allow those principles to be breached. The Prime Minister had recently made “rumbling noises” about legislating for a wage-fixing system if agreement was not reached. “If that is the price of legislating, he will have to go ahead and do it because we cannot sell the workers of this country up the river,” she said. The Government had already made a “crucial” mistake with the $B-a-week general wage order. Legislating for a wage fixing system would be another mistake, but “I don’t really mind that,” she said.