Mr Anderton gives staff pay rise
PA Wellington The president of the Labour Party. Mr J. P. Anderton, a member of the Auckland Employers' Association, says he has reclassified four or five of his senior staff jobs to give them pay increases in spite of the wage freeze.
Mr Anderton said that he would be surprised if any significant company had not looked at the conditions or wages of its senior executives and he challenged major corporations to say “what is really happening.” “It tends to happen to senior executives all the time,” Mr Anderton said. “It is the factory floor which misses out. It is very easy to manipulate senior staff, to rename or reclassify jobs. And it is easily rationalised to the Labour Department.” Mr Anderton is principal of a Penrose, Auckland, manufacturing-engineering
business which makes wire and steel products. He employs 20 people.
Mr Anderton asserted that the wage-freeze regulations were "shot full of holes." "It is a very simple matter to look at job specifications and in fact be able to prove that an increase is justified." he said. “The problem I have had is with those whose jobs defy redefinition. It is very difficult to call a production welder anything other than that." He had reclassified four or five of his employees’ jobs and given them pay rises, but none of the directors of his company had received pay rises. He acknowledged that practice might be outside the strict letter of the wagefreeze regulations. “There is a limit to what I’m prepared to bow to. At that point I say, ‘to hell with it.’ " The executive director of
the Employers’ Federation, Mr J. W. Rowe, disputed Mr Anderton’s assertion that the practice of awarding senior staff wage rises by reclassifying their jobs was widespread. The Minster of Labour. Mr Bolger, would not say yesterday whether Mr Anderton was breaching the wage freeze. Mr Bolger told reporters, "There is capacity if a job is significantly changed, and therefore the responsibilities alter, to respond to that circumstance and that is permitted in the freeze."
However, the Minster said evidence from the Statistics Department showing no wage movements “gives the lie" to any assertion that employers were beating the freeze. Asked if Mr Anderton was breaching the freeze regulations, the Minister said: "That is for the department and finally the courts to determine, not the Minister of Labour."
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Press, 17 May 1984, Page 1
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400Mr Anderton gives staff pay rise Press, 17 May 1984, Page 1
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