Worries for unions in award round

Press, 17 January 1989, Page 4

Worries for unions in award round

PA Wellington Bargaining between employers and unions gets under way again after the Christmas holiday break with 90 sets of negotiations settled and many more scheduled for the New Year.

Employers are hailing some aspects of the round so far as a victory and unions are increasingly worried about the award structure and what they call “interference” from big business and the Government. The Council of Trade Unions’ vice president, Ms Angela Foulkes, said yesterday the Business Round Table had a "more clearly defined role” in this award round. She cited Fletcher Challenge as one company which had played a main role in the settling of documents. She said the input from big business had caused a great deal of disruption in getting award documents settled.

The Employers’ Federation yesterday said it was pleased with the wide range of settlement figures and the achievement of a number of employer claims. It said negative aspects of the round included the unions’ inability to recognise the need for greater flexibility in employment contracts. However, Ms Foulkes said this was a thinly veiled excuse meaning the federation wanted to reduce costs.

Employers say the main issue facing New Zealand is unemployment and

"realistic” wage settlements will allow employers to maintain and improve profitability and in turn increase the number of jobs available. The federation said it was not happy with the bargaining structure and would like to see more agreements made at the workplace where concerns could be discussed more directly. This was something the C.T.U. did not entirely discredit, Ms Foulkes said. However, she said there had been no claims coming forward from the employers to settle on industry agreements. The Employers Federation’s industrial co-ordina-tor, Mr Mike Clark, said the true cost to employers

in the round had been considerably less than the apparent settlement figure. This was because there had been gaps from when the old awards expired and new ones began, during which no backdating was paid. Ms Foulkes accused the federation of deliberately stalling. She said awards could have been settled a lot earlier and there would have been less disruption to industries.

The State had also had a bigger hand in this award round, she

“We have seen more State bargaining and this has been an added complication.”

She cited the Electricorp dispute and said similar situations were likely in the health and education sectors.

The Employers’ Federation said the changes that have been achieved show that “the union movement is starting to recognise that bargaining is no longer a one-way street where they ask and employers give.” However, Ms Foulkes said the changes to documents had been minimal. “What we are seeing here is just a rerun of previous award rounds. “There has been little change to the structure of the documents. We only got 4 per cent (wage increase) by knocking heads together and practically guerrilla warfare with the economy paying the price for three months.

“Every year we go into the round and hear the same old speech about the ability to pay and are offered the same amount. It gets quite depressing,” she said.

For real progress to be made unions and employers needed to talk more regularly during the year, she said.