P.M. alleges selfishness within unions

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 2

P.M. alleges selfishness within unions

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, again gave vent yesterday ' to his frustration over the: alleged failure of the trade union movement to look ..after its weakest members.

It is a theme he has been developing for some time and is part of his argument that the protection of the low-paid is the responsibility of the State, not of the wage-fixing structure. Mr Lange has many times accused the unions of ad-■ vancing the interests of those at the top of the pay scale at the expense of i those at the bottom and has interpreted their pursuit of percentage rather than dollar-and-cent wage increases in this light. He acknowledged yesterday that the Federation of Labour acted in. concert with the Combined State Unions which was tied to a system of percentage increases whether it liked it or not, but he indicated that this was not the full explanation — that there was also an inherent selfishness among those workers with industrial muscle. “Some people in critical areas of industry and employment have big wage demands and can, through clout, get them and others look at them,” he told reporters at a post-caucus press conference. “If you work as a sewing machinist in a factory on the West Coast, you work 40 hours and get $172 a week. Have you heard of a claim for them? “The answer to that is ‘no’ and so the Government has to come in and the Government will,” Mr Lange said.

He said the minimum wage would be increased but would not say when or by how much, as the matter was still being negotiated l?y the tripartite committee.