Wage round progress considered good

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 22

Wage round progress considered good

PA Wellington The wage round is nearly completed, and the Labour Department is pleased with the way most industrial awards have been settled. “It has gone extremely well,” said the department’s director of industrial relations, Mr Ralph Stockdill. The compressed round of negotiations, with all awards shoehorned into a tight four-month schedule of conciliation, would be completed soon, he believed. Because this was the first opportunity to renegotiate awards for three years, there was a lot of pressure on all parties. Many awards were substantially out of date, and while it was true some issues in dispute were put aside, critical issues were dealt with. Most were now settled within the guideline for wage rises of between 6.5 per cent and 7.02 per cent.

Some in excess of that amount took account of the fact that some awards were to apply for a longer term. There was little structural change to awards or significant changes to conditions. Mr Stockdill said a feature of many settlements was agreement by employers and unions to set up working parties to look at main outstanding issues before the next round began. The Employers’ Federation advocate, Mr Steve Marshall, said that while the formal and public part of the award round was all but over, and with relatively little industrial disharmony, there was still a lot of work to be done. Awards settled basic rates but Mr Marshall said actual wages to be paid to workers on big sites and in big companies were still being discussed. Potential for disruption still existed unless talks on

these agreements were held in the same atmosphere of reasonable restraint. Mr Marshall said the smoothness of the award round was the result of a combination of factors. Last year’s change of Government eased the industrial situation and probably had a significant effect on union attitudes. At the tripartite talks, although there was no acceptance of a guideline, there was agreement on the need for restraint. But the existence of a Labour Government could not be relied on later this year when the next round of award talks began. Mr Marshall expected there would be a lot of pressure for big changes to awards in the next round and the tripartite talks between employers, unions and the Government, which would probably start next month, were bound to be tough.