Marsden laws ‘fitting in a dictatorship’

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 8

Marsden laws ‘fitting in a dictatorship’

PA Auckland Special legislation controlling disputes at the Marsden Point refinery expansion site was Draconian, the inquiry into industrial relations on the project was told yesterday. Mr Howard Keyte, counsel for the boilermakers' and electrical unions, said that the Whangarei Refinery Expansion Project Disputes Act, 1984, would be “more fitting in a dictatorship.” The unions, he said, also asked the committee, Dr Martyn Finlay, Q.C., to recommend legislation altering the collective site agreement to recognise a workers’ site committee, to reinstate 25 workers dismissed for union activities, and to institute quicker procedures for settling minor disputes and personal grievances. Mr Keyte said that any peace on the expansion site since the legislation was an

“enforced peace” and had nothing to do with true industrial relations.

The Disputes Act had reinforced the attitudes of a harsh and unreasonable employer and allowed the Marsden Refinery Constructors consortium to act as a law unto itself, he said.

“Management evidence demonstrated that certain key members of management on this site have brought to the job a major disadvantage to harmonious industrial relations, that is, they have brought with them grudges and great unhappiness from previous jobs,” he said.

The unions had no such predetermination and, according to delegates’ evidence, wanted the job to be a good one. Instead, they ended up back-pedalling just to present the rights of union members.

Mr Keyte said the consortium’s statement that the

fundamental issue was the union’s failure to adhere to the law was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Mr Murray Edwards, counsel for the Engineering Union, said that the committee should find that the contractual agreement was not to the benefit of the country and had been used to cause industrial unrest. The consortium and the New Zealand Refining Company were both negligent for not taking adequate precautions for the safety of workers on site, said Mr Edwards. Mr Edwards asked the committee to recommend that the Government change the Industrial Relations Act to provide protection for workers and union delegates from any employers’ conspiracy to blacklist workers. The inquiry will continue today with final submissions by the Federation of Labour.