Delegates hiss at Minister

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 1

Delegates hiss at Minister

PA Wellington Labour Party delegates hissed the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, as for the lion.

the closing of the Tasman, mill in Kawerau. He described the situation as “crazy” and said it was taking the town to the brink of disaster. Workers could double their wages in the foreseeable future if the parties set- aside the “them and us” attitude, he said. It was good for management and workers to have increased produc-

tiylty and it was good for New Zealand, he said in a speech to the conference on Saturday. It would only be by higher productivity that higher real wages and more jobs would be achieved as well as higher profits.

The people at Kawerau, for example, had been earning wages about half of those of identical workers in Canada.

In spite of that the unit labour cost of a roll of paper was three times higher at Kawerau than

in Canada, he said. “Tasman’s productivity is worse, not because of poor machinery, but simply because the plant’s on strike a lot of the time.”

Mr Douglas said unions who co-operated to achieve higher productivity were not “playing sweetheart” to management ’ There would always be conflict between workers and management but that conflict was pointless unless both sides were aiming for a bigger cake.

Mr Douglas said his comments were not antiunion.

“We need good unions. We need strong unions. We also need unions with their heads screwed' on.

“It Isn’t and it never was good Labour principle to turn aside from an opportunity to double the wages of workers, and devote oneself instead to policies with the potential to wreck the town they live in. Not in my Labour Party anyway,” he said to an interjection of “traitor” from a delegate.