Union power under attack

Press, 26 September 1988, Page 5

Union power under attack

Wellington reporter A National government would moderate the national award system and reduce the “power” of trade unions, its spokesman on trade and industry, Mr Philip Burdon, said. He hit hard at the Government’s record in its second term when speaking to the National Party’s Central Otago electorate. At the heart of his attack was the Government’s record on industrial relations. The Government’s changes to the labour market had been cosmetic, Mr Burdon said. A National government would see the end of compulsory unionism and the national award system. “The Government has been totally inadequate in introducing real labour market reform and no real progress is going to

be made until we moderate . the national awards system and reduce the power of unions like the Northern Distribution Union,” he said. He was amazed, he said that employers had not made a greater issue of the abuses emerging from the recently introduced Labour Education Act. The act Wes' a “failure” and a “paid forum for the union movement to promote union activism and obstruction,” he said. Mr Burdon told members that the National Party saw Mrs Thatcher’s Britain as a role model. She had a singleminded commitment to create a genuinely internationally competitive economy operating in a free and deregulated environment. Meanwhile, the Labour Government was just playing and was being too abstract, he said.