INDUSTRIAL POSITION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 17 January 1928, Page 7

INDUSTRIAL POSITION

ATTITUDE OF EMPLOYERS STATEMENT IN CONCILIATION COURT (By, Telegraph—Special to "The Mail") CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Speaking to-day at a meeting of the Conciliation Council which is dealing with claims for a new dominion award covering the clothing and manufacturing trade, Mr W. C. Prime, secretary of the Canterbury Employers' Association, made a statement setting out the general principles which employers felt should be taken into consideration when applications for fresh awards involving further concessions in conditions and wages were made. New Zealand, he said, to-day stood at the cross-roads, and must make a decision as to which road she would travel. Our national income was dependent mainly on the product of the land—our primary industries —and any increased handicap on the secondary industries which might result in higher costs' to the consumer would reaot against the producer and so tend to curtail our national income. The outstanding problem of the Dominion was the position the farmer has been placed in by the fact that he was receiving only about 40 per cent, above pre-war prices for his produce, while lie had to meet increases of about 60 per cent, in his cost of living arid general expenses. This was a' position which could not continue without, inviting national disaster, and could be met only by increased production or by decreased costs. Two main avenues were open. The first, advocated by some employers, was a decrease in the standaid rates of wages. Such a course, it was held, would reduce costs, and as a result, prices and the cost of living generally, enabling the worker to maintain his present standard on a reduced income. The first difficulty in giving this theory a trial was that it would admittedly ,be opposed by the workers and could not be given elfect to without bitter industrial strife. The chief contention against the adoption of a wages cut was that it relieved management from the necessity of seeking other economics in costs, such as improvement in technique, organisation or finance. The second view, advocated by those who are most directly opposed to the first suggestion, was that wages should be increased in order to increase the. purchasing power of the community, and in order to stimulate the employer into finding new and more economical methods of production.

PROPOSED TRUCE

Mr Prime went on to ask if there was not another solution than the two apposing theories already mentioned, whether there was not a third road along which we might travel to normal trade and prosperity. He quoted tentative proposals put forward on two occasions during the past three years by the Hon. T. Shailer Weston for an industrial truce. In a nutshell tjiese proposals amounted to this: Let the Workers' Union* vahnun for a periodfive years need not necessarily be stipulated", but unless or until abnormal circumstances arise—from seeking further concessions in standard rates of money wages, and the employers similarly refrain ffqn) seeking reductions, If both parties continued fo he ranged in hostile camps, with the worker* seeking fur* thor concessions unjustified by the economic facts, employers would in self defence he compelled to seek wage reductions.