‘Broken promises by trade unions’

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 9

‘Broken promises by trade unions’

PA Auckland Broken promises by trade unions threaten to bring down the Government’s consensus strategy, says an employers’ spokesman. The director of the Auckland Employers’ Association, Mr Douglas Stewart, said unions had not stood by their commitment at the economic summit or the agreement of the tripartite wage bargaining talks. The employer attack comes in the face of several industrial disputes in the Auckland region resulting from claims in the sage round.

Five hundred Engineers’ Union members at Pacific Steel began rolling strikes this week for an 11.5 per cent wage rise, while 600 members at New Zealand Steel are striking for parity with Glenbrook workers.

At the Westfield freezing works, 1500 workers remain on strike over a redundancy dispute, and a ban by the Storeworkers’ Union — in support of about $3O a week extra in the general award — has resulted in Auckland firms suspending workers.

Mr Stewart said the Federation of Labour and its constituent unions undertook

to act in accordance with the reform of collective bargaining, an agreement made just before the economic summit.

Unions also joined the communique of the summit and agreed to guidelines set in a late-night meeting in the Prime Minister’s office to allow the compressed wage round to go ahead. “These must be held to by the union movement, or the accords will collapse,” Mr Stewart said.

He said the disputes were nowrt costing millions of dollars and losing hard-won overseas trade.