Employers say hold timber wage rises

Press, 6 October 1988, Page 5

Employers say hold timber wage rises

By

WILLIAM HOBBS

in Nelson

Timber industry employers are seeking a six-month moratorium on wage increases because of what they claim is the still-parlous state of the timber industry.

Conciliation on the first of this year’s timber industry awards, with the Nelson Timber Workers’ Union, is to begin on Monday, but yesterday the timber industry employers’ association issued a statement saying they would be putting forward a proposal that the present award should be extended to March 31, 1989. At a press conference after the annual meeting of the association, the president, Mr Paul Bacon, said the employers had established four important principles after considering their position. These were: that the industry had no capacity to absorb extra costs at present; that the priority in industry management must be to avoid further unemployment and redundancies; that longer-term prosperity in the industry would not be possible without prudent shortterm management; and that wages should be adjusted in line with increased productivity and economic improvement in the industry as soon as possible. Mr Bacon denied that the six-month pause amounted to a proposal for a nil wage adjustment. He said it was rather a case of the industry wanting to wait until its economic position became clearer.

In particular, it would allow the industry to see

whether the recent devaluation of the New Zealand dollar was likely to be reasonably permanent or was just another shortterm aberration in currency movements. The Nelson Timber Workers' Union was seeking a flat $3O-a-week wage adjustment to be paid by way of an allowance with an 11 per cent increase in other allowances. That would cost Nelson employers an extra $1 million in the coming year if it were paid, he said. Nelson employers at the meeting declined to commit themselves as to whether further redundancies would necessarily follow if they had to meet the union’s demands. The managing director of the fibreboard manufacturer, Nelson Pine Industries, Mr Murray Sturgeon, said the employers were not talking about redundancies, but about long-term stability of the industry. “What we’re asking for is some reprieve to study the state of the dollar,” he said.

Figures which showed the industry had been in severe recession for the last three years with the closing of 70 sawmills and the loss of 2000 jobs in 1986 clearly indicated the way things were at present, Mr Sturgeon said. The secretary of the

Nelson Workers’ Union, Ms Rebecca Hamid, said yesterday several employers had contacted workers on site to dissociate themselves from the employers’ association’s stance. She said it was difficult for the union to accept it as a genuine employer proposal when they had been notified of it through the news media, in spite of offers to hold preaward talks with the employers. However, if the union was to take it as a genuine proposal there were several points which would have to be agreed before it was considered. These would include opening the employers' books to union scrutiny, union participation in decision making affecting staffing levels, an agreement that there should also be a six-months moratorium on redundancies, and an agreement that any wage increase should be back-dated if it was shown at the end of the six months that the company concerned could afford it. Ms Hamid said she hoped the employers’ attitude did not indicate that they were preparing for a confrontation. Union members did not want a confrontation.

They had already made sacrifices, and were just seeking to maintain their position.