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Salient. Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 26, No. 1. Monday, February 25, 1963

Govt. Protection Weakened Unions

Govt. Protection Weakened Unions

The New Zealand trade union movement had been weakened by Government legislation originally designed to protect and strengthen it, claims T. P. Shand, Minister of Labour.

"That Was A Hard Night"

"That Was A Hard Night"

Minister of Labour Shand relaxes with Congress students.

Mr. Shand, addressing the NZUSA Congress at the end of January at Curious Cove, said the New Zealand union movement had for more than 60 years accepted greater government interference than had its counterparts in most other countries.

If the New Zealand trade union movement is to do its job in the future. Mr. Shand said, it will have to discover how it can be more effective, how it can get the loyalty of its members and how it can get enough money to do the Job properly.

"Since the 1890s. the trade union movement has looked to government and said: 'Come on. government, you do something about it." Mr. Shand said. "It seems to be a peculiarly New Zealand attitude."

Workers have come to credit the government, not the unions, for much of the good conditions gained, he said, and this has weakened the relationship between the union and the individual worker.

"Half of the work done by the inspectors of the Labour Department." he said, "is work which in other countries is done by union secretaries and organisers.

Unions have won the right to representation and the right to have preference for their members in employment, he said. Now they must face the problems for which they were originally created, issues of wages and working conditions.

But. Mr. Shand warned, unions in New Zealand had been weakened by legislation which provided for compulsory unionism, guaranteed collection of dues and encouraged the development of a large number of small unions.

"They haven't had to fight for money. They haven't had to fight for policing of working conditions," he said.

Too many unions, like too many employers, were not large enough to support a professional staff adequate to represent them, he said.

"The weakest unions are those too small to employ paid officials and too big to be managed part time," he said. "One of the great weaknesses of the industrial situation in New Zealand is that both sides go to the bargaining table unqualified to argue their cases as well as they should."

Mr. Shand cited the importance of the Federation of Labour in providing professional services for many individual unions. "The Federation of Labour, from anyone's point of view, is a blessing—if a mixed blessing," he said.

He also praised the role of the FOL in representing individual unions in bargaining and before the Arbitration Court. Because both employers and employees are represented by associations which include large numbers of persons not directly involved in a dispute, there is a will to find agreement which might not be as strong if each were represented directly. Mr. Shand said.

Unions are in danger of losing out in the scramble for competent young executive officers, he said.

"The trade union movement is living on its human capital, living on people who came in 40 or 50 years ago and were dedicated to the battle," he said. "Those battles have been won, but the job, in many ways, is more difficult."

Unions have got to be prepared to pay competitive salaries for professional organisers, Mr. Shand said.