Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1938. OUR INDUSTRIAL DISORDERS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 November 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1938. OUR INDUSTRIAL DISORDERS.

three years of Labour rule, and with a Labour Government re-established in power by a substantial majority of the electors of the Dominion, the outbreak of a number of strikes and industrial disputes, and visible threats that similar troubles may extend, . seem to be decidedly out of the picture. Now, if ever, it might have been thought possible to provide that all necessary adjustments in industry should be made peaceably. This plainly is to the advantage of everyone concerned —workers and employers alike. Strikes and hold-ups are wasteful and costly'. Their cost must either be met by particular groups and sections or must be spread over the community generally. It cannot be escaped. As a. matter of common sense, not to speak of common justice, it might be thought that the time had come in New Zealand to abandon industrial warfare and to rely instead upon an orderly and equitable regulation of industry.

There is no industrial dispute of any kind that cannot be settled better by an appeal to reason than by an appeal to force and the New Zealand democracy surely might be expected to desire to make an end of methods of barbarism where these disputes are concerned. It is demonstrated at the moment that we are far from having reached that pitch of enlightenment, however, and the question of what accounts for our failure to do so is well worth going into.

, On any examination of the facts it is bound to appear that there is no such uniformity of standards and of practice in industrial regulation as there is, for example, in ordinary civil or criminal law. At best only rough and ready attempts have been made as yet in this country to determine and maintain appropriate relative standards of reward for different kinds of labour or other service. Then again circumstances favour, in some occupations,, the formation of strong unions which often pursue a militant policy and are ready at every opportunity to shape whatever demands they think they are able to enforce. There is an. approach, at least, to conditions in which workers banded together in powerful unions get what they ask for, while many other sections of the community have to take what they can get.

Much of the imperfect order, developing at. times into positive disorder, that marks our industrial relations might, lie. remedied by the comprehensive determination and enforcement of equitable relative standards of payment in different occupations in whatever categories of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled, permanent and casual and so forth, are thought necessary and advisable. Broad standards of this kind are supposed to rule the procedure of the Arbitration Court. They seem, however, to be very imperfectly applied, and not all industries come under the jurisdiction of the Court. The ruling tendency is to settle industrial disputes with too narrow' a regard to the circumstances of a particular industry,' and with insufficient regard to the effect of a given adjustment on the surrounding body of industry and on members of the community generally, notably in their I capacity as consumers.

The definite institution of equitable, relative standards of payment for the various divisions of labour and service would assist greatly the establishment, of order in industry. If for instance, with these standards plainly determined, a strong union advanced demands involving plainly a departure from the standard in favour of a particular group or section, it may be supposed that the demands would, be opposed by an overwhelming weight of public opinion. If one section in industry gets more than its share, others must get less. On the other hand, any union making demands which would merely bring its members into line -with ruling standards evidently would be entitled to have its demands conceded.

The establishment and enforcement of equitable rela-’ five standards of payment is the more to be desired since it would do a great deal to check and modify the vicious ascending spiral of costs and prices. Much of this ascent is pure waste, doing no good to anyone, but doing a great deal to hamper and to curtail production. None have more to gain than wage-earners from the establishment of stable order in industry, in accordance with approved standards, and if wages were dealt with in that way there should be no great difficulty in applying similar methods to other details of industrial regulation.