PAUSE IN ARBITRATION

Evening Star, Issue 23745, 28 November 1940, Page 15

PAUSE IN ARBITRATION

CEASELESS BICKERING DEPLORED COVERHMEHT ASKED TO STAY PROCEEDINGS (Per United Press Association.! CHRISTCHURCH, November £7. Representations are to be made to the Government by the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation requesting the cessation of proceedings in the Aibitrntion Court and the Conciliation Council for the duration of the war or, alternatively, for a period of at least 12 months. The matter was raised in a remit sponsored by Mr J. Hogg, of Dunedin, at the conclusion of the manufacturers’ conference at Haiimer Springs to-day. , , Mr Hogg said there was a good deal of economic waste in 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 the manufacturers were willing and anxious to get on with the job. The Government had appealed for a cessation in the rise of costs, and 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 bickerings over the conciliation table.”

Mr H. L. Longbottom, of 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 Arbitration Court or the 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.