Suggestions ‘unworkable’

Press, 13 December 1986, Page 10

Suggestions ‘unworkable’

PA Wellington Suggestions that unions should negotiate wages on the basis of productivity increases are unworkable, says the Coachworkers’ Union secretary, Mr Graeme Clarke.

In calling for such negotiations the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, was simply justifying his belief that workers should get nothing, Mr Clarke said yesterday. He wrote to Mr Douglas in October emphasising that in spite of improve-

ments in motor assembly plant productivity, unions were having great difficulty in translating this into pay packets. Since 1979, direct labour cost in a small Japanese-sourced vehicle was 4 per cent of its retail price. It was now 2.5 per cent. Labour hours required to build the car fell from 70 to 40.

In spite of productive increases, basic assembly workers’ rates fell relative to the average wage. Where they received the

same as the average wage in 1979 they now needed a 30 per cent rise to get the same level.

“Past experience with our employers suggests... that questions of productivity are things that employers and governments only talk about when they are a factor for low wage settlements,” Mr Clarke said. “When productivity improvements have occurred employers and governments say they are irrelevant in determining wage increases.”