Signs of stormy wage-fixing talks

Press, 4 June 1984, Page 6

Signs of stormy wage-fixing talks

By

Patricia Herbert

in Wellington

Heated public statements made last week by the Federation of Labour against the two other parties in the wage-fixing talks indicate that Wednesday’s meeting of the Long-Term Reform Committee may be stormy. The committee, which has met more than 30 times in the last 14 months, comprises representatives of the F.0.L., the Employers’ Federation, and the' Government. Agreement has been reached on the number of areas but, beyond an occasional formal report, little has been said about the discussions’ progress. It was decided at the outset that committee members each maintain a high level of confidentiality. However, the lid came off last Wednesday when the F.O.L.”s secretary, Mr K. G. Dogulas, publicly attacked proposals floated by the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, in an address to the Institute of Management the Tuesday before.

Mr Bolger said that a major sticking point in the tripartite talks was the question of moving towards composite bargaining on a plant or industry basis. The parties had agreed to the principle that there should be one negotiation in a single enterprise rather than several but there were important differences on the most appropriate mechanism for encouraging this. He then outlined his thinking on the matter, saying that the national award system should be kept but restructed to allow for individual shop agreements in larger workplaces negotiated by industry-based unions. “In my view, if it is logical to have composite bargaining to cover all workers in a planty — and that is accepted by the parties — then, to be consistent, we must make provision in the law for the establishment of plant or industry unions,” Mr Bolger said. He also said that time for decision-making was running out because it was the

clear object of the Government to have whatever changes were necessary in place this year so that the parties could return to wage-bargaining in 1985 under the reformed structure. Legislation would have to be introduced early in the Parliamentary session if this deadline were to be met, he told the institute. The F.O.L. responded by tabling a letter at the next committee meeting, held on May 28 in which it put on record its opposition to the ideas Mr Bolger had raised. The advent of plant unions and plant-bargaining would compromise the intergrity of the national award system as a wage protection mechanism for lower paid workers, it said. It had maintained throughout that existing unions should be the negotiating agents — a view that Government representatives on the committee had always accepted. Even the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, had endorsed this position, it said, jn a letter to the

F.O.L. last month he had said that the employers’ proposal to force unions on a particular work-site into a single bargaining organisation was “undue coercion.” “This leaves the F.O.L. in the situation where statements made by Government officals at these talks are unreliable, indeed in this instance, completely false, either because of deliberate misrepresentatiion or because of the fact that officials are not privy to the Minister’s intentions,” it said. However, at the same meeting the Government tabled a set of principles for discussion which embodied the ideas Mr Bolger had floated in his speech. After the meeting, Mr Douglas held a press conference at which he attacked the initiatives Mr Bolger had promoted. They threatened to turn traditional union membership structures upside down, he said, and would “further undermine the national award system as we know it.” The union was

based on a marriage between the workers on larger sites and those in smaller enterprises and if the first were removed from the equation, the fabric would be destroyed and any concept of wage equity eroded. “What we are likely to see is the proliferation of a number of weak plantbased, employer-sponsored unions on the small and medium worksites,” he said. They would be set up as a means of circumventing the national awards through the negotiation of shop agreements at lower rates. "If this occurs, workers on large, unionised sites will enjoy a relatively high level of wages and good working conditions while workers on smaller worksites will have no effective wages and conditions protection and will lack bargaining power to rectify the situation. “The introduction of this concept at this stage means that there is nothing agreed and removes the possibility of any real progress coming out of these talks,” he said. His comments attracted a sharp retort from the Em-

ployers’ Federation. Its executive director, Mr J. W. Rowe, said that he was surprised that the F.O.L. had made a public statement on the committee meeting “when it had been agreed that no statement would be made.” “Workers are likely to be as disappointed as employers at the F.O.L.’s intransigence,” he said. “If the F.O.L. sees the talks are useless, it is hard to see that they can have any constructive influence on their outcome. The F.O.L.’s attitude leaves the Government little option but to press ahead with legislation without F.O.L. input.” The Prime Minister was also moved to make a public statement in response to the remarks that Mr Douglas had made. “Mr Douglas is overreacting,” Sir Robert said. “On instructions from the Government, officials this week tabled a set of principles on the reform of the bargaining system for discussion by the Wage Reform /Committee. The main

point about these principles is that they offer the unions a means of achieving reform if and when they are ready to do so. “There is no question of any coercion either of unions or of workers. Reform of the bargaining system has been on the agenda of the committee from the start and has been identified as one of the major issues yet to be resolved,” he said. In support of his statement, he released the document Mr Douglas had attacked because he thought it “proper” to do so. The paper was to have been kept in committee. At this stage, the last word belongs to the F.O.L. Mr Douglas on Thursday described the "Minister’s eleventh hour proposal” as a curious coincidence. If implemented, if would weaken the national award system — something the Employers’ Federation openly favoured, he said. “The obvious inference is that there has been some collusion between the employers and the Minister of Labour on this issue.’/--