Flexibility already exists—unionist

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 2

Flexibility already exists—unionist

Employers wanted to have their “industrial cake” and eat it too by seeking more flexibility in the national award system, said the president of the Canterbury Trades Council, Mr Lou Burns.

Mr Burns was replying to comments by the director of the Canterbury Employers’ Association, Mr Colin Mclnnes. Mr Mclnnes had said that unionists who opposed flexibility should “get their heads out of the sand” and look to flexibility to enable productivity and growth, and thereby jobs.

The unions fear that employer groups in some industries will refuse to negotiate national awards and force unions to negotiate regional agreements

or “house” agreements. This would lead to a widening of the disparity between workers’ wages in big cities or in the North Island and the small rural towns or the South Island. Under national awards there is a uniform minimum wage structure.

“The crucial point that employers seem unable to grapple with in this whole debate is the flexibility that already exists under the national award system,” said Mr Burns.

"The national award is a minimum safeguard, a safety net, nothing else. If an employer is in a position to show greater flexibility then, of course, that is where the second-tier structure begins. Perhaps what the association

really means is that they believe in flexibility when it suits them,” said Mr Burns.

An advertising campaign by the trades council was designed to expose the employers’ stance for what it was, he said. “The latest grandstanding about flexibility is reminiscent of the association’s campaign for so-called freedom from compulsory unionism. That was perhaps the first case in living memory where the employers have suddenly , put the interests of the workers first.

“The reality of that situation was that employers did not give tuppence for workers’ freedom or rights, but were simply seeking to under-

mine the labour structure of this country by dividing and weakening the union movement. “This case is no different; the call for flexibility is not in the interest of workers, it is simply to undermine the national award structure,” said Mr Bilrns.

“The union movement already has its hands full in policing underpayments of the present award system. Even the very low paid awards coincide with a significant percentage of employer refusal to pay properly or correctly. Any weakening of that safety net via the concept of flexibility will only result in greater exploitation of workers throughout New Zealand,” said Mr Burns.