WAGE BARGAINING

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 130, 28 November 1940, Page 17

WAGE BARGAINING

A WARTIME WASTE

CESSATION PROPOSED FOR

TIME

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, November 27.

Representations are to be made to the Government by the New Zealand Manufacturers' '}\ Federation requesting a cessation of proceedings in the Court of Arbitration and Conciliation Council for the duration of the war or, alternately, for at least 12 months.

The matter was raised in a remit sponsored by Mr. J. Hogg, Dunedin, at the conclusion of the manufacturers' conference* at Hanmer Springs today. Mr. Hogg said there was a good deal of economic waste m the holding of all such proceedings. The absence of employers and of workers from essential work and the cost of the actual proceedings were impeding war production. The Minister of Supply (Mr. Sullivan) had appealed for the utmost production and manufacturers were willing and anxious to get on with the job. The Government had appealed for a cessation in the rise of costs.. The workers had the last word a few months ago when they received a general increase in wages of 5 per cent. "I can hardly credit," Mr. Hogg added, "that at a time when the whole Empire is at war we should have to have these arguments and bickering over a conciliation table."

Mr. H. L. Longbottom, Dunedin, who seconded the proposal, said it did not affect the power to impose a general wage increase at six-monthly intervals. The proposal was designed merely to obviate the dragging of separate industries before the Court of Arbitration or Conciliation Council for the hearing of disputes which a higher sense of patriotism could well leave in abeyance till the major job of winning the war was completed.