INDUSTRIAL CHAOS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 296, 9 August 1932, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL CHAOS

CONCILIAjTIQN COMMISSIONER | STRESSES DANGER FACING i THE COUNTRY % CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday. j "Unless agreement is reacbsd in i industrial disputes the country will | liave to face the prospect of indus- i trial chaos," said Mr. S. Ritchie, Con- j cilation Commissioner, when the par- § ties to the metal-workers' dispute fail- | ed to reach an agreement as to new i working conditions. , Three separate days were spent in j liearing this dispute. When the coun- | cil adjourned without an agreement, b Mr. G. T. Thurston, on behalf of the | employees, expressed regret that some ! agreement had not bee reached. He • felt that the assessors on the employ- | j ers' side had been guided not by their jj I own opinions, but by some outside | force in not agreeing to concessions | to strilce a bargain. •.> The employees' assessors were pre- | pared to offer reasonable terms, go- jjj ing much further than they were au- t thorised to do by their organisation. f They were prepared to take the risk | of being kicked afterward for con- ; ceding too much in a desire to reach | some settlernent in the dispute. '■• He maintained the criticism he had | voiced earlier about the failure of the | commissioner, at a prior hearing, to | use his full powers to effect a settle- | ment, but addad that yesterday the | commissioner certainly had strained j|j every effort to bring the parties together. There was a definite spirit on his side to arrange some settle- | ment, but the other side would not ) budge and had precipitated a regret- | table failure. | Mr. J. Scargie, another of the em- l ployees' assessor, said that if the \ representatives of the employers were | going to come to such proceedings j without any idea of conciliating, tlien j the whole of the work of many years past in bringing employees and em- i ployers together for industrial peace _ was going to be undoPe. t "By forcing this thing and using the | depnession as a weapon to force work- S ers to accept whatever terms the em- I ployers dictate in place of the old | spirit of co-operation, there is going h to he a feeling of antagonism between | workers and employers," he said. p Mr. G. M. Hall, for the employers, |= regretted thebreakdown, and was | sorry to hear talk of antagonism. No- | thing was further from the minds of | the employers than an itention to | develop antagonism between sections of industry. || The engineering industry was prac- | tically on its last legs now. There $ was hardly a shop in the country em- | ploying the men it was capable of and | hardly one showing a profit. Employ- p ers could not possibly be as generous ^ as they had been in the past. | There had not been much between | the parties in the present dispute, | and he thought the workers might | have accepted the offer of the employ- | ers considering that it was to be only | temporary till the main engineering | dispute was settled and without prejudice to future proceedings. $ He paid a tribute to the work of » the commissioner, on both days of the | hearing. He had done everything pos- $ sibl-e to bring the parties to an understanding. | The commissioner said that, though f there has not been an agreement, | there was some Jittle consolation in •, the fact that apparently both sides | looked for and appreciated stability | of working conditions in industry and £ regretted the failure to achieve that in y this case. | Speaking personally, and not official- | ly, he said that he had a very strong J feeling that unless agreement was | reached between the parties in in- g; dustrial disputes, the country had to § face the prospects of industrial chaos. | He had gone outside his official re- | sponsibility in an effort to reach an | agreement in this dispute. | The failure was regrettable, but it • j seemed to him that some outside in- | fluence played a part in the result. |