Economic statement ‘attack on workers’

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 8

Economic statement ‘attack on workers’

PA Wellington National union heads yesterday criticised the Government’s economic statement as an attack on workers. The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr Jim Knox, said it was of little help to the genuine working farmer but was being used as a underhand attack on working people. The chairman of the Combined State Unions, Mr Colin Hicks, criticised the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, for attempting to blame the wage round’s increases for layoffs and rising unemployment. The economic statement outlined the Government’s plan to review industrial relations legislation and the principles on which it was based, and Mr Douglas said the first step would be the publication of a Green

Paper next week identifying areas for important decisions. “During the current wage round we have seen a high level of settlements, and a. lack of flexibility between awards, which between • them will put jobs and businesses at risk next-, year,” said Mr Douglas. “This unsatisfactory outcome owes a great deal to both employers and unions looking back at a period of. rapid economic growth and a high rate of. inflation, not forward to very different conditions in the months ahead.” Mr Knox criticised Mr Dougles’s comments as a “cheap shot” and said that for the first time since 1981, workers had a wage rise that would go some way towards making up for price increases. In particular, unions in the wage round had won

significant improvements in » the position of the low-paid,. he saitt Butihow the Minis- f ter had hit .but at workers ? and tried to pass the blame ( . on tdithem. “ > “The Government should | * know full well that it is not » wages that are. the of J i farmers {problems- -g it is > the academic monetary i theories of the Treasury and ' r the higlr’“interest-rate policy,” said Mr Knox, q. ■ | Mr Hicks said the Gov- t ernment’s economic pro- ~ gramme required a shakeout in economic activity, £ and that a surge in imem- | ployment was a central { feature of the adjustment that the Government saw as J necessary in a return to » economic reality. j “Unemployment would ' have increased next year | regardless of what hap- .' pened in the wage round,” F he said. ...... ..?