FIXATION OF WAGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20111, 23 November 1928, Page 14

FIXATION OF WAGES.

HIGH RATES" CRITICISED. THE EFFECT «0N INDUSTRY. Wage-fixing and the duties of tho Arbitration Court were matters commented on at the annual meeting of tho Auckland Provincial Employers' Association yesterday. "It is not. so much tho number of unemployed as tho improbability of a large proportion of them being absorbed again in tho industrial occupations from which they wero discharged which makes tho situation so serious, and leads to tho question whether the present wage-fixing system has not in some industries entirely collapsed," said the president, Mr. Albert Spencer. "Employers havo not been able to successfully resist—and in many cases havo not attempted to resist —the labour demands for increased wages, reduced hours, and other concessions." Employers had accepted tho apparently inevitable, but had been forced to put off hands when it was found they wero not earning tho wages they had demanded. Tho position had been aggravated by a number of tho unemployed having started work on their own. Being under no restrictions and having no wages to pay, they had cut prices in some cases btlow" pre-war level. As this position had ;bcen brought ibout by tho labour unions, the onus was on them to find the solution.

Mr. Spencer said 'the original intention that (lie Arbitration Court should bo a Court of Appeal for disputes which could not be settled by conciliation had gradually, and perhaps inevitably, been lost sight of. The Court become practically a ,wage-fixing tribunal. Mr. J. Daves said the solo aim of trades unions was shorter hours and higher wages. The Arbitration Court had been abused, and in many instances wages weie too high. Once the trades unions realised; that the battle was not between them Sjind employers, but between them aid economic conditions, something might bo done.