NO MORE AWARD COERCION

Evening Star, Issue 21581, 29 November 1933, Page 2

NO MORE AWARD COERCION

AMENDED ACT A SUCCESS—SO FAR REAL TEST WILL COME IN SELLER'S MARKET EMPLOYERS' SECRETARY GIVES ADVICE Mr T. 0. Bishop, secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, gave an address at last night’s meeting of the Employers’ Association, in the course of which he touched on the relations between employers and organised labour. “ There is a matter which 1 want to talk about for a little while,” said Air Bishop, “ because it is more particularly the business of the Employers Federation—that is, the industrial situation or our relationship with organised labour. We have now had considerable experience of negotiating industrial agreements under the amended Arbitration Act which reference of disputes to the Court of Arbitration is optional and not compulsory, and, so far, the amendment has, for our point of view, been entirely successful. Employers cannot any longer be coerced into working under an award which is not acceptable to them so long as they act together and support their organisation. It is the first time since 18114 that we have had a means of escape from legal regulation ol industrial conditions. Organised labour has realised the truth of that perhaps even more clearly than employers themselves, and in an effort to overcome it during the last few months sections ol the unions have endeavoured to drive a wedge between groups of employers and pla.V one off against another. “ It is to the credit of the larger unions that they have not attempted those tactics, but have met the employers’ organisations fairly in negotiations. These unions have always been more reliant upon their own strength than upon the Court of Arbitration, and responsibility has been no new thing to them. The troublesome unions have been tlio.se whose existence in the past has depended solely upon the ability ol their officials to obtain an award of the Court of Arbitration every two years. These are now finding themselves in difficulties. They have never had to take responsibility in the past because they could always go to the court. Consequently they have had no experience of negotiation. When their demands are refused, instead of making the best bargain possible under the circumstances they have allowed their awards to be cancelled, and have realised only when too late the effect upon their membership. Jn certain trades there are quite a large proportion of the employers in a small way of business who were themselves employees until quite recently. Men of this type have been ready to sign individual agreements with a union upon the cancellation of an award, and have lent their aid to the union in endeavouring to have sueli agreements made into awards and to have the real employers made party to them. Several such attempts have been made, and one, which is known as the Hellnby ease, was made the subject of reference to the Full Court of Appeal. The judgment in that case was satisfactory in that it upheld our own interpretation of the Act, and it has definitely established the position which I slated a lew minutes ago

—that employers cannot be coerced so long ;is tfiey stick together. I have said that so far as our experience goes the amendment of the Arbitration Act has been a success. It must be remembered that so far the conditions have been all in onr favour, or in other words, regarding labour as a commodity, we have been operating in a 1 buyer’s market.’ WHEN LABOUR PRESSURE COMES. The time will come, and we are hoping for it to come quickly, when the labour market will tie more favourable to the sellers, and then we shall have to stand up to the real lest of the new system. When prices begin to rise and wages have to be raised to meet the increasing cost of living, the pressure from labour will be very strong. The unions will then reject arbitration’ just as employers are doing it to-day, and quite rightly so, and they will ho in a position to use considerable force in pressing their claims. “ Jn my opinion there is no lear oi industrial trouble until prices begin to rise and there is a greater demand for labour, but when that comes about there will be a need for a maximum strength in employers’ organisations and for a full measure of loyalty. In the absence of compulsory arbitration we shall have to be prepared to take full responsibility for dealing fairly and honestly by labour while serving tile interests of our own members, and wo shall need all the support and all the loyalty of employers as a whole to enable the duty to be sueeessfuly discharged. “ The Employers’ Federation is rather a wonderful organisation. It cm braces in its membership directly and through affiliations primary producers, exporters, manufacturers, importers, wholesale and retail traders, ship owners and mine owners; and while the separate interests of these different sections clash and they advocate opposing policies upon many questions quite frequently, they have all been prepared to subscribe to a common policy in regard to labour and industrial legislation. It is essential that this unanimity be preserved; without it there can bo no strength and no success. In. order to preserve it our lederation has to strictly coniine its work to the dealing with Labour and industrial legislation. If we go outside that work we must inevitably rouse tlie opposition of some of our members. Hut while it is essential to the usehil performance of onr special work that we should confine ourselves as an organisation wholly to that work, it follows that in all matters which do not conic within the scope of that work onr members individually and by sections must bo entirely free to act as they may think necessary. There are separate organisations of primary producers, of manufacturers, of wholesalers, of retailers, of importers and of exporters. Each lias its own work to perform. In many cases the interests are opposed. If those separate bodies were to attempt to. deal with industrial matters the feeling of opposition to each other would be carried into those matters and there would be no strength, no common policy, no success. There must be an organisation whose work is eoniinod wholly to industrial matters to which the members of all organisations existing for other purposes may belong unreservedly and in the councils of which nothing but industrial matters are dealt with or discussed. Moreover, the members must agree that however much they may be opposed to each other upon questions not within the scope of industrial matters they will respect each other’s rights and will not allow friction to creep into the councils of the central body. DIFFERENCES. “ There will at times be differences of opinion upon strictly industrial mat-

tors. Jt is desirable that there should be, and in such eases differences are easily settled by majority voting. Hut what J mean is this—that a difference of opinion between a farmer and a manufacturer on a tariff question or between the fanners’ unions and the Manufacturers’ Federation should never be allowed to affect the position ol either of them in the Employers' Federation. II it is allowed to creep in it will very quickly be found that there will be opposing factions upon industrial and Labour questions and the interests of all employers will suffer. “ I regret that there has been a little anti-federation propaganda put forward recently and that evidence given by our vice-president (Sir William limit) on behalf of the Meat Producers’ Board has been quoted as though the Employers’ Federation was in some way responsible for it. That is a very mis"tahen policy. As an officer of our federation, Sir William Hunt has been more active in our behalf than anyone else excepting the president, and he has upheld our policy in industrial matters whole-heartedly for many years. Ho is, by the way, a farmer, a manufacturer, an importer, and a big employer ol labour. As a member of the Meat Hoard he gave evidence recently in favour of Freetrade with Cl rent Britain. That was no concern of ours. Tariffs do not come within our scope. On several occasions our president (Mr A. C. Mitchell) has given evidence in favour of higher duties upon imported machinery. He was acting on behalf of the manufacturers in Mew Zealand, and again it was no business of the Employers' Federation. “ The president and vice-president agree upon industrial matters while they entirely disagree about tariff questions. If their disagreement upon tariff were permitted to spoil their agreement as employers, then we should lose either a good president or a good vice-presi-dent, and that would be a great pity. Moreover, il that effect were to spread over all who subscribe to Sir William Hunt’s or Mr A. C. Mitchell’s private opinion upon tariff questions, it will readily be seen that we could not carry on the Employers' Federation at ail. The attempt to ioist responsibility lor the Meat Board’s evidence on to the Employers’ Federation was quite uncalled for; it was not playing the game, and it was foolish, for if it was calculated to have any effect at all upon the minds of the members of the commission it was to give the evidence a little more weight than it had otherwise. There would have been no thought of a connection between the evidence and the federation if the suggestion had not been put forward.”