POLITICAL SCENE GOVERNMENT MAY NOT SURVIVE FULL TERM

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1946, Page 2

POLITICAL SCENE GOVERNMENT MAY NOT SURVIVE FULL TERM

Vifcw of Some Union Leaders

Pressing Industrial Problems [SPECIAL._TO STAR.] .. WELLINGTON, Dec. 4. .New Zealand has so far escaped the major industrial trouble apd strike fever that have hampered the recovery of so many nations, including Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The year 1947, however, if it does not see an upheaval on the 1921 scale, will at least find industrial disputes one of the most pressing national problems in New Zealand.

The stage is alreay set, and the first act already in progress. The waterfront dispute over the guaranteed wage is not only the first major problem for the recently-returned Labour Government, but is likely to set the pace in other industries. Some union leaders are already claiming that the Government may not survive the three-year term. Seat of the Trouble.

The seat of the trouble is the wage-earner’s difficulty in making ends meet financially. It is freely claimed that in spite of wage increases, price control, etc., the pay envelope of the industrial worker covers no more than bare essentials, and leaves the worker and his family much poorer than before the war. If this is the much-vaunted New Order promised during the long years of war, then the workers of New Zealand, in the opinion of their union leaders, will not be content to accept it. They feel that, apart from its social legislation, the chief purpose for which they elected the Labour Government was to apportion a greater share of the country’s wealth to the workers. This purpose, they insist, has not been achieved. Wage-Pegging Resented.

They resent wage-pegging, claiming that the theory of prices following wages is unfounded. They will in the New Year formulate policies whereby wage increases will be demanded, and demanded with firm price control accompanying them. They argue that the whole weakness of Government policy on wages and prices, so vital to the trade union movement, has lain in the price control technique. Almost every time a wage increase has been granted a commensurate or greater increase in prices has been automatically authorised. . This policy, they will demand, shall stop, and. the worker be enabled to overtake the economic disadvantage he is suffering at the moment, and has been suffering since the war ended.

Many of the trade union movement’s gains in New Zealand have been achieved by industrial action, but in social services and, to a certain extent, redistribution of income and protection of workers’ conditions, much more has been gained by political action. It was with this fact in mind that the trade union movement, its patience extended, was nonetheless prepared to support the Labour Government to the full at the poll. Even so, the fate of the Government depended in the end on a lew hundred votes which could easily have gone the other way in any of four Auckland city electorates.. The election figures prove that without the full allegiance of the trade unions the Government could not survive one day.

The strength of both the industrial and political Labour movement has been sapped by the policy of the political leaders themselves. They have, as an incidental to their retention of power within and without the movement, managed to prevent the rise of youthful, forwardthinking men within the unions, or, alternatively, have bought them off” with advancement in other fields, which many have been ready to accept as a means of stepping out of the ranks. There are some significant exceptions, however. The “progressives within the national councd Federation of Labour are maki * ctrone' headway, and. may be expected to carry the day when vital .ssues come forward in 1947. Must Face Issue. The waterfront dispute however, sets the pace, and it does.so lai earlier than had been expected not the original idea’ that this particular dispute should be earned SO soon the full distance, but it is now dXlt to see it ending m anything but a major hold-up ol goods and services throughout the country. The Government may elect to take off the gloves at this early stage, bu that is unlikely. Cabinet, most probably, will endure the situation m acute discomfort xfor some time yet, though feeling aware that it must pvpntually face the issue.