Court Concludes Hearing Of Wages Application

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 July 1947, Page 3

Court Concludes Hearing Of Wages Application

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 21. The hearing of the application to the Court of Arbitration for a standard wage pronouncement ended this afternoon and decision was reserved. The Court now faced, the task of sifting the large amount of evidence presented, said Mr Justice Tyndall. The Court would carry out its responsibilities without fear oi s favour affection or ill will. “If and when the Court does bring down its decision it will no doubt be greeted with the usual chorus of disapproval from all points of the compass/’ Mr Justice Tyndall said. He thanked the advocates for the way thev had made their submissions. There had been a pleasing lack of personal- animosity and proceedings had been maintained at a creditably high level. The claim by the Federation of Labour was foi' an increase of £ 1 a week on standard wage rates, and for improved relative payments to women and junior workers. In his closing address, the advocate for the Federation of Labour (Mr K. McL. Baxter) .referred to the evidence of Mr H. L. Wise, member of the Price Investigation Tribunal. Mr Wise’s evidence, he said, contained these points: industry generally could not absorb a “substantial” wage increase, there was possibly a small amount of scope for absorption in the distributive trades, wage increases to date had resulted in pressure being brought to bear on the Price Tribunal which had given way in many instances, and the tribunal had compelled industry to absorb cost increases where the margin appeared too high.

Absorption Of Increase It appeared that increased wages meant unpleasant work for the tribunal, said Mr Baxter. Frankly, he just did not believe that industry could not absorb the cost of further wage increases in line with the claims. Mr Wise did not explain the sharp upward movement in net profits revealed by published balance-sheets and accompanied by the continued upward trend in reserves and overall gross profit. He maintained that Mr Wise’s' expression of opinion could not be regarded as having established to-any degree in hard facts and figures the case for the respondent organisations. Mr W. E. Anderson, on behalf of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, had told the Court it must base its pronouncement on the war-time price index, continued Mr Baxter, because he anticipated that applicants would try to prove there had been a rise in the cost of living. The Federation of Labour did not tile an application for a general order increase, nor did it seek an increase on the basis of wartime price index. This was an application under Regulation 298, amendment No. 5, for a new standard hourly wage pronouncement, and under Regulation 39C, amendment No. 11, for a proper relationship with workers-covered by awards, etc., who had been granted increases by the Court since March, 1945. The war-time price index could not measure the effect of the substitution of high price goods no longer available, nor could it register the effect of the substitution of goods of lower standard of quality. Furthermore, the child allowance was a factor which no longer permitted wage rates being determined on a cost of living basis. No Exploitation By Workers Mr Baxter denied that this was a case of the workers trying to “cash in” on something. If the workers had exploited the war situation as effectively as industry had, they would have taken a very much larger slice of industrial earnings than they actually did. A great deal of their earnings in that period was by excessive overtime. “The information available to us is inadequate for making a proper estimate of the cost of the claims.” said Mr Baxter. In cases where rates above the minimum provided in the awards were being paid, any increases following the Court’s pronouncement would affect them only

to the extent of the difference between the ruling rate and the new award rate. If the former margins were to be maintained, the employer and worker would have to make application to a wages commissioner for approval. 1 He submitted that the figure for “wages and salaries paid” as published by the Government Statistician could not properly be taken as the only basis on which the cost of the increases was to be estimated, because it included salaries, did not differentiate between male and female workers or adults and juniors and included all overtime and special payments. Salaries Of Executives In the salaries groups were the salaries of those higher executives whose increases to date formed one of the reasons for the present application. Because of a shortage of labour, juniors today earned in excess of award rates. The federation believed that if the claims were granted there would be a lesser tendency to increase those rates than to increase adult male rates which exceeded the award rate. There was no reason to assume that special payments would be increased in proportion to increased wages, or that the amount of overtime would be stable or would apply to workers in the same wage groups, or that bonuses would be included? There was no guarantee of a proportionate increase in these.