THE REAL FAULT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 8

THE REAL FAULT

On first thoughts the action of the Arbitration Court in awarding a wage increase at this time may seem inexplicable. The increase is not great, -kl an hour or 2s a week, but when so many men are out of work and any rise in costs may lessen opportunities for employment the reasonable course would appear to be not to add lo costs in any way. The Court's explanation of its action (from which the employers' representative dissents) is that it considered itself bound by an award made in Duncdin in 1929. Tho Court, after having fixed a standard, must apply that standard until it decides to alter it. The Court, indeed, does not regulate wages in a haphazard way. It determines certain basic rates, and wages for all classes are adjusted to that standard. The skilled artisan receives more than the unskilled labourer according to the skill required in his trade. This method may be condemned by the casual thinker as tending to make the Court a tribunal shackled by precedents and bound by cases, instead of free to deal with facts and decide on evidence. But only the superficial thinker can endorse such condemnation. If the Court were to throw precedent to the winds and maintain no sort of uniformity in awards or proportion in wages there would be widespread discontent —and'not without reason. The fault lies, not in the Court's decision to "apply a standard until it decides to alter it," but in its inability to alter that standard in a fair and reasonable way. If the Auckland electrical workers claim that they should be placed on the same wage basis as men in the same trade in Dunedin, the fact that they have hitherto been on a lower wage strengthens their claim rather than weakens it. If there is to be reduction it should be made first where die workers have been in receipt of the higher rate. This is where the Court's powers are limited. It cannot alter the wages fixed by existing awards until the awards expire. Therefore the union which obtained an increase before the depression set in would have a great . advantage over the union whose award expired when trade conditions were worst. To make the latter suffer would be to follow the Irishman's advice: "When you see a head, hit it." The Court, we are convinced, should have wider powers. It should be able to consider all wages, and deal out justice with an even hand. It is the fault of Parliament and the Government that the Court has not such power. The Government was asked, while Parliament was in session, to amend the Act so that awards might be changed by general order. This was not a demand for a legislative reduction in wages, but a request that the Legislature should empower the wagefixing tribunal to make an adjustment if it were convinced, after hearing the parties, that an'adjustment was necessary and fair. Under existing conditions there is anything but fairness. Workers who are not covered by awards are having iheir wages and salaries reduced. The farmer's wage came down with a thud. In many instances reductions have, we believe, been accepted by employees as preferable to dismissals. With award-governed workers there is no choice. If the employer feels compelled to reduce his wages bill he cannot spread the reduction by taking a little off each man's wage (except with his clerical and administrative staff). He may, of course, ration the work, but this is not always possible. In any case it means that men are idle, and that is not helpful. There should be greater elasticity—under the control of the Court. It would not be advisable to allow unrestricted freedom. That would mean the abolition of awards. ' But where circumstances show that revision would be in the interests of all parlies- it should be possible for the Court to undertake it. Parliament failed in its duty in neglecting to entrust that, power to the Court. Parliament and not the Covfl is to blame.