INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1940, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES

Once more an industrial dispute has been settled by giving way to those who fomented a stoppage of work. It is true that in thus disposing of a recent trouble at the Macdonald coal mine the national disputes committee accompanied its decision with some platitudinous observations about the unnecessary stoppage of work over a small dispute and urged all parties to deal with disputes "strictly in accordance with the terms of the agreement." Similar observations have been made before, but as there have been no penalties for ignoring them it is not surprising that recalcitrant industrialists are not very impressed with such warnings. At all events they have failed to prevent further stoppages of work in essential industries. The dispute at the Macdonald mine appears to have been trivial in the extreme. Apparently it was really a difference of opinion whether a rainy day made a certain job "wet" work for which a higher rate of payment could be claimed. The | committee upheld the workers' claim for the higher wages, but stated that its ruling was not to be interpreted as finding that such work would always be classified as "wet" in rainy weather. Such a ruling confirms the opinion that the national committee has been guided by expediency rather than by a desire to see agreements supported loyally. An immediate difficulty has been overcome, and presumably the disputes committee hopes that with this trouble past there will be no more stoppages of work. It can only be hoped that this triumph of faith over experience will be justified. If the committee, and the Government consider the public is likely to approve of this method of treating with people who break industrial agreements they are certain to be disappointed. The Government has unlimited powers under legislalion and the wartime regulations to control the mining and any other industry. The Minister of Mines has borne testimony to the necessity for an increased output and the Government has protected the domestic market for the Dominion industry. It has also provided an elaborate system for dealing with industrial disputes of which the cardinal feature is that while disputes are being settled there shall be no =+oppage nf ' work. When that principle is

flouted, as it was at the Macdonald mine, compulsory arbitration is bound to fail. The public wants to know what the Ministry proposes to do about it, for employers point out with justice that they are soon subjected to penalties if industrial awards and agreements are not |complied with fully.