AN AGREEMENT FLOUTED

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 190, 8 May 1940, Page 8

AN AGREEMENT FLOUTED

It is not surprising that the method chosen by the .Minister of Labour to settle the Auckland tramway dispute has given rise to public dissatisfaction in the northern city.. Instead of insisting upon adherence to the clear-cut agreement between the Transport Board and the union that any dispute over wages should be referred to the Court of Arbitration, the Minister Has used his power under the war regulations to set up a compulsory tribunal, thus assisting to flout the agreement by dispensing altogether with Court of Arbitration procedure. The tribunal’s finding was in favour of the men. The increase in wages (awarded in the form of a bonus) .amounts to 8 per cent., involving the board in an additional expenditure in wages of £30,000. This, though serious enough to Auckland ratepayers, is not the main point of complaint. The most unsatisfactory feature of the case is that the Government has dealt with an industrial dispute under the emergency regulations in spite of the fact that adequate provision for settling it existed in the agreement between the board and the union. If other unions should take advantage of this precedent, disputes clauses in existing industrial agreements are likely to become valueless. The authority of the Court of Arbitration may be handed over to hastily-summoned emergency tribunals, the personnel of which arc chosen by the Minister. The competency of such bodies is wholly unproved, and it is a matter for serious misgiving that, important industrial questions may at any time be removed from the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration and placed in their hands.