IMPORTANT TALKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26917, 1 November 1948, Page 6

IMPORTANT TALKS

MANUFACTURERS’ FEDERATION REMiTS COVER WIDE FIELD P.A. WELLINGTON, Oct. 3L A proposal for the setting up of joirit farmer-manufacturer committees in all towns and cities where manufacturers’ associations exist has been made by the council of the Garment ‘Makers’ Federations. This proposition has been put forward as a means of eliminating misunderstandings which sometimes arise between these two sections of the community, and it wfill be considered by the annual conference of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation when it meets in Wellington on Wednesday and Thursday next. The Garment Makers - Council believes that such committees would overcome many misunderstandings which at present lead sometimes to grave conflict of interests. Further, such liaisons would assist in making all sections of the community conversant with, and sympathetic to, the problems of others. A method for further improving industrial relations is proposed by the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association, which will submit to the conference a paper on this subject. The Wellington Association, proposes that the suggestion emanating from various organisations and private Government members, that compulsory, employee representation in management should be strenuously opposed on the main ground that it is not practicable and is another step on the road to ultimate Socialism. The Wellington Association also views with concern the power of the Waterfront Industry Commission (without right of appeal) to determine the rates of pay for workers handling special cargoes, and proposes that the federation should examine the position fully and.make representations to the appropriate authorities. The Auckland Association proposes that age beneficiaries should be enabled to engage, if they so desire, in productive employment without imperilling their right to social security benefits. . The secretary of the federation, Mr D. I, Macdonald, said to-day that the conference promised to be the most important in the history' of the federation. With an election looming up next year, arta important recent developments in the operation of import control and the regulation of interr.ati&nal trade, there was every evidence that the manufacturers would have an especial interest in their 1948 conference.