OFFER REJECTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26478, 4 June 1947, Page 6

OFFER REJECTED

EMPLOYERS' PROPOSALS TRAMWAYMEN SET DEADLINE p.A, WELLINGTON, June 3. Describing the employers’ offer as' unacceptable, the national council of the New Zealand Tramway Employees’ Union has rejected the counter-proposals for a national agreement for the industry put forward by representatives of the Dominion tramway authorities. The union has affirmed its belief that a settlement can still toe reached by negotiation, but it, has set June 30 as a deadline.

Stating that this course was necessary because of much unrest in the industry, the national secretary of the union, Mr P. A. Hansen, said to-day that the union representatives had had two conferences with the employers on the proposals put forward by the union for a national agreement. At the second conference, which lasted three days and concluded last week, the employers made counter-proposals. These were put before the national council of the union at the week-end in the form of a letter from, the employers’ advocate, Mr L. B. Hutton, general manager of the Wellington tramways. The unions’ confidence of the possibility of an early settlement vanished, Mr Hansen said, when the statement appeared at the very outset of Mr Hutton’s letter that the employers demanded that their counteroffer should be accepted as a whole and not in part. This condition made it impossible for. the union to accept because, although there were favourable aspects there, it could not be adopted in toto as it did not give effect to certain fundamental claihis about which the members had been so specific when the matter was placed before them for an instruction through a secret ballot. The union firmly believed that the basis of a settlement and the framework for the universally desired national agreement could be found. It was therefore proposed, to negotiate further, but June 30 next had been set as the deadline.