EARLY OVERHAUL PREDICTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26354, 8 January 1947, Page 5

EARLY OVERHAUL PREDICTED

Australian Arbitration Machinery (From A. W. Mentiplay, Special Correspondent) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 7. After being exposed for over a year to intense battering by militant unions, it appears that at last the Commonwealth conciliation and arbitration machinery is scheduled for a complete overhaul. It is predicted in Canberra that the Federal Government will introduce redrafting and amending legislation when Parliament meets next month. This is included in the legislative programme which officials are now preparing for Ministerial and Cabinet approval. Such a course of action is patently overdue.

The amendments will presumably be directed at expediting, simplifying and reducing the cost of approaches to industrial tribunals and to encouraging conciliation in industrial disputes. The present ponderous system must accept much of the blame for the unrest in industry. In the long run the arbitration system, as operated here, has been efficient, but it is hard to prove this to the ill-informed rank and file worker who sees the courts deliberating for months over apparently simple issues while militant Leftist union officials preach to him the virtues of direct action. A case in point is the court handling of the 40-hour week issue. A year ago the unions were threatening a general strike in order to force the benefits of the 40-hour week. The full Arbitration Court agreed to consider the case and to widen the application of one union to provide a general test of the practicability of the 40-hour week. For months that case has been ploughing on witness after witness has been heard, and a solution seems no nearer. There is no complete justification of the use of the weapon of direct action, but the worker has some grounds for becoming impatient with a tribunal which deliberates for a full year or more before making a pronouncement.

The next five weeks will see a series of conferences aimed at improving the arbitration machinery. During brief discussions last week with leaders of the Australasian Council of Trade unions, Mr Chifley made guarded reference to a Government Bill to streamline the working of the tribunals. Happenings during that conference indicated that in future the Prime Minister might discard the advice of the council in favour of that of the newlyformed Industrial Disputes Committee of the Labour Party Executive. In stating later that he would soon be in a position to place proposals before the key organisations witnin the Labour movement, Mr Chifley referred to the Industrial Committee and also the independent Western' Australian Trades and Labour Council and the Australian Workers’ Union as well as the Australasian Council of Trade Unions.

This is one of the developments which could mean a widening of the breach between political and industrial Labour. Mr Chifley himself is by no means convinced that the Arbitration Court cannot deal with all legal disputes, and the decision to amend the Arbitration Act is a retreat from his expressed policy which must be distasteful to him.