INTERNATIONAL LABOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1947, Page 3

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR

MR. P. M. BUTLER TO REPRESENT NEW ZEALAND MEETING IN GENEVA IN MARCH (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 19. Mr. P. M. Butler, of Wellington, who acted as a workers’ delegate at the twenty-seventh session of the International Labour Organisation conference in Paris in 1945, and who was elected by the workers’ delegates, of member nations to the governing body, has received an invitation to attend a meeting of the governing body to be held in Geneva in March. He will leave New Zealand on February 24. On this occasion the work of the governing body will be of more than ordinary interest, as it is the first to be held undei’ the revised constitution of the International Labour Organisation. It is also the first meeting since the Inernational Labour Organisation was accepted by the United Nations Assembly as an agent of the economic and social committee of the Assembly. Since the cessation of hostilities the organisation has established international industrial committees whose duty it is to examine social and economic questions referred to them, and to report with recommendations to the governing body. On this occasion the governing body will receive reports from the textile committee, the building and civil engineering, and the public works committees. Such questions as full employment, increased production, reduction of working hours, minimum weekly wages, the recruitment and training of personnel, and recommendations respecting more co-operation in man-agement-government-worker relations will be considered and discussed. Incidental matters to be considered will be safety, health, social security, industrial hygiene, and rural housing in relation to building and nublic works.

Because of the problems of reconstruction confronting nations, very full reports have bean prepared about these matters and the efforts of nations to understand and co-operate with each other.

There is a proposition to be discussed that nations with surplus labour or materials should assist less fortunate nations in problems of reconstruction by transferring labour and exchanging materials.