Prebble forced Govt’s hand on unions—P.M.

Press, 1 June 1988, Page 8

Prebble forced Govt’s hand on unions—P.M.

By

BRENDON BURNS,

political reporter

The Government had not planned to challenge the role of trade unions within the Labour Party during its second term of office, said the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday.

But in again backing the legal challenge of his Cabinet colleague, Mr Prebble, against the party, Mr Lange suggested he also would like curbs put on union block-voting at Labour conferences. Mr Lange’s initial reluctance to take on the unions was matched yesterday by his determination that union muscle should not be ‘‘oppressive.” He said that Mr Prebble’s legal action had precipitated the Government into backing the challenge to the unions. Such a move had not been planned during this term of office. "No, I can't for a moment profess that,” Mr Lange said.

The next question was whether the Government was forced to endorse Mr Prebble. “The answer is we are going to take advantage of this question.” Mr Lange will tomorrow meet the Labour Party president, Mr Rex Jones, to discuss what to do to resolve the issues raised by Mr Prebble’s legal action. Both Messrs Lange and Jones are members of the party committee which has been directed by the Labour executive to reach an out-of-court settlement. Mr Prebble’s action seeks to require unions to provide the names and addresses of members who are also affiliated members of the Labour

Party. He has challenged as invalid a Labour Party executive ruling that union delegates, drawn from unidentified affiliate membership, be accepted in the Auckland Central electorate. Mr Lange yesterday backed the demand that unions be obliged to provide the names and addresses of affiliated members. He said such members should also be full Labour Party members if they wanted to play a role in electorate affairs. Unionists now could go to Labour electorate monthly meetings once every three months and keep the union’s membership alive. This then al-

lowed a greater number of union delegates to take part in such activities as candidate selection, he said. Mr Lange said he was not saying that unions were too powerful. "I am saying that when they come to exercise that influence we should have a party which allows that influence to be exercised in a way which is not oppressive.” The issue of union card votes at party conference also had to be addressed, he said.

policy. Mr Lange said the card vote was mostly exercised with restraint. But it was an issue that had to be “bartered” through by the committee considering Mr Prebble’s court action. This would be an amicable contest, he suggested. “I think the union movement and the party both see no point in carrying on a pointless rivalry.” Mr Lange believed most members of the party’s ruling council would want Mr Prebble to drop his court case. But he did not. “I believe it should be there.” It would be foolish to drop the case, he said.

At last year’s conference, union block votes pushed through a vote making any remit passed with two-thirds support automatically party