Qualified assurance given State unions on pay-fixing system

Press, 12 June 1986, Page 8

Qualified assurance given State unions on pay-fixing system

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

Tension between the public sector unions and the Government eased yesterday with an assurance that workers in the new corporations will remain in the State payfixing system.

This is in line with last month’s caucus resolution that employees in the new State trading enterprises "shall be State servants for the purposes of the 1977 State Services Conditions of Employment Act, modified as necessary.”

The resolution was welcomed by the Combined State Unions but their sense of victory was punctured last week when the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, indicated that

the rigidities in the State wage regime were incompatible with commercial principles.

In an address on the restructuring programme, Mr Douglas said, “If a business needs a good accountant or bulldozer driver, it has to be free to pay what is necessary to attract or retain the right man.

“In the Public Service, if you can’t get him or retain him at some arbitrary, centrally fixed rate, you have to go without or hire somebody less efficient.

“I am not in any doubt that when we release these staff from the excessive control of Treasury and the State Services Commission we are going to make large

gains in energy and efficiency.” Those words brought union anxiety at the corporatisation plans to a new pitch and yesterday a delegation comprising the acting chairman of the Combined State Unions, Mr Ron Burgess, and the secretary of the Public Service Association, Mr Colin Clark, met to discuss them with Mr Douglas and the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Palmer. The meeting succeeded in calming their fears, at least temporarily. Mr Burgess said the Government had made its position clear and that they were “happy at this stage with that position.” He was referring to assurances that:

• The C.S.U. would be

able to take up the broader issues involved in the shake-up with a special Ministerial committee established to supervise the transition process and comprising Mr Palmer, Mr Douglas, the Minister of Transport, Mr Prebble, the Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, and the Minister of Education and Conservation, Mr Marshall.

• That no decision had yet been taken on the industrial relations implications of the reform package.

• That the State Services Conditions of Employment Act would continue to apply to the new corporations but in amended form. • That the C.S.U. would be able to negotiate the

nature of those amendments with the officials concerned.

The most significant of these is that the new trading organisations will be bound by the State Services Conditions of Employment Act, albeit in amended form.

The implications of this are that the State unions will be able to put up a good case for continuing to represent staff involved as the act recognises them as the main bargaining agent. However, while it will strengthen their position, it does not guarantee it, a point Mr Palmer made later in the afternoon when he reaffirmed that the issue of union coverage had yet to be determined.