ARBITRATION SYSTEM

Evening Star, Issue 19772, 24 January 1928, Page 4

ARBITRATION SYSTEM

PROFESSOR TOCKER'S CRITICISM COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ADVOCATED INDUSTRY BOUND IN STRAITJACKET. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. MELBOURNE, January 24. (Received January 24, at 11.25 a.m.) Explaining the system of compulsory arbitration in New Zealand Professor Tocker, of Canterbury College, in an address to the members of the Vie. torian Chamber of Manufacturers, expressed the opinion that the system had failed to do the things which it was created to do. He advocated a return to collective bargaining between employers and employees. Industry in a young country should be flexible, and the adjustments mutually satisfactory to employers and employees. “ It should be made to suit the conditions in particular branches of industry,” continued Professor Tocker. “The Arbitration Court is a piece of legal machinery set up between the parties in industry which prevents their coming together, and forces them both to organise for contention rather than for conciliation.” Professor Tocker said that in New’ Zealand compulsiry arbitration was introduced thirty years ago, primarlv with the object of ensuring industrial peace. In that ft had failed, especially in recent years. From 1921 until this year strikes had become increasingly common. The tVmrt had developed along lines never intended, and its effects had never been fully considered. While the scope of the court’s investigations was limited to the conditions of only about one-fourth of the wage-earners of the community, it made awards which were binding over a far larger field, and it had a profound influence on other industries, as the minimum wage fixed by the court became in almost every case the standard wage. No increases were provided for skill or productivity, and no allowance was made for human variability. Disputes were frequently created to give the court work to do. Industry was bound in a strait-jacket which prevented experiments, decreased production, and increased costs. The burden arising out of the system ultimately fell upon the shoulders of the consumers and on the unsheltered primary industries.