ARBITRATION ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 97, 21 October 1931, Page 10

ARBITRATION ACT

" AMEND OR ABOLISH"

COAL OWNERS' VIEW

IWEBS TOO GREAT

In thu interests of the coal mining industry the Arbitration Act needs to be extensively amended or abolished, according to Colonel W. D. Holgate. In his presidential address to the Kew Zealand Coal Mine Owners' Association to-day he remarked that for some years the coal mine owners had made no use of the Conciliation Council or the Arbitration Court, the object being to create a better feeling between tho miners' unions and tho companies by meeting the unions in conference.

"This has been the practice for the past nine years, and tv some extent I must admit that in some districts a better feeling has existed between the men and the companies," said Colonel Holgate. "It is claimed that an agreement made at a conference is more satisfactory and more likely to bo kept by the minors than one forced upon them by the Arbitration Court, but it would appear by the attitude tnken up by the West Coast unions and others that tho conferences held in 1030 were a waste of time, which is regrettable, to say tho least.

Conditions have altered to such an extent within the past few years that it has become necessary in the interests of our industry that the Arbitration Act should bo extensively amended or abolished. Every effort should be made to induce the Government to move in the matter.

"If the Court is to continue, power .should be granted to revise all existing awards, also to deprive the Court of some of its powers, which arc now greater than the original framers of the Act intended."