[unclear: e] Remuneration Act Comes Into [unclear: Ast]

[unclear: Last] Tuesday night, the Government [unclear: ounced] it would use its new powers [unclear: ler] the Remuneration Act to cut the [unclear: eral] Drivers' Award settlement. The [unclear: ve] followed a threat by the Prime Minis[unclear: that] the proposed settlement was "ex[unclear: sive"], and it came in the midst of a series [unclear: stopwork] meetings being organised by [unclear: des] Councils to discuss the position of [unclear: FoL] on the new Act.

[unclear: As] we go to press the likely consequences [unclear: the] Government's moves are not clear, [unclear: two] questions stand out in the contin[unclear: g] debate: in whose interests is the [unclear: Government] acting; and what is the role of the [unclear: leadership] going to be?

[unclear: Government] Shows its True Colours

[unclear: The] award rate given to drivers will have [unclear: Flow]-on effect for many other unions, [unclear: e] Government claims that the negotiated [unclear: tlement] would have an "unacceptable" [unclear: ect] on the economy as a whole. In this it [unclear: been] supported by the Executive Direc[unclear: of] the Employers' Federation, Mr J. [unclear: we.]

[unclear: When] the Government talks about the [unclear: ood] of the country" and the "economy [unclear: a] whole" it is of course referring to the [unclear: e] of economic restructuring it has been [unclear: adily] embracing. This involves [unclear: npening] down consumer demand by keeping wages low, lifting price controls and introducing higher levels of indirect taxation. It also involves channeling resources into exports and encouraging foreign investment. Both these measures require wages to be held down as well.

The Government is not acting in the interests of the vast majority of the people of this country. Clearly, with inflation running at an unprecedented high for the current economic crisis, it is directly in the interests of most people that their wages allow them to cope with the cost of living.

Do Wage Rises Cause Inflation?

But, some people might claim, high wages cause more inflation! Others might also argue that the Government has not attacked just the unions, but the drivers' employers as well. To answer the first of these charges, it is useful to look briefly at the second.

The penalty imposed on the drivers' employers is that they cannot pass on the increased wage bill in their prices. In other words, the tension is not between wages and prices, as we are often led to believe, but between wages and profits. To put it more simply, it is between the interests of the workers and the interests of the bosses.

In fact, this is always the case. The fact that the employers usually safeguard their individual interests by increasing their prices merely serves to disguise the real situation. Higher wages do not actually cause inflation. Rather, it is the employers' continual drive to increase their profits that gives real impetus to the spiral.

But if the Government is acting in the interests of the employers, why did it impose restrictions on the drivers' employers as well? The answer is that the Government acts in the interests of the employers as a whole. The drivers' employers may be in a better position than some other employers to safeguard their profits while accepting the 11 % award increase in wages.

More importantly, the Drivers' Union is a more militant union than many others and is therefore able to obtain higher settlements than those the others could get. When Muldoon tries to isolate militant unions from the rest, he does so because he knows that the employers' interests would be better served if the militant unions were not acting in a proxy manner for the others.

Standing Over the Unions

Before the negotiated settlement was announced, Muldoon warned that he would call a snap Cabinet meeting if the final announcement was "too high". He denied that he was using stand-over tactics. Yet it is hard to see what else such a threat could be. On the other hand, he accused the drivers of using stand-over tactics themselves. "The Government, acting on behalf of the public, could not accept settlements that were produced by strike action," he maintained.

What this means is that workers, in fighting for their own living standards, are not allowed to use the only tool that is really their own: the right to withdraw their labour. Posing as a condemnation of "extremists" in the union movement, this remark is really an attack on the whole trade union movement.

Whither the FoL?

When the Cabinet decision to cut the award settlement was announced, Jim Knox, President of the FoL, was in Australia. To the great surprise of many, he stayed there. So because the mountain didn't come to Mohamed, Mohamed Douglas (Secretary, FoL), and Mohamed Boomer (Vice-President, FoL) went to the mountain. The FoL's decision to send its three top men out of the country when, according to the Evening Post "storm clouds were massing along the country's industrial front", has been explained away in some quarters as perfectly acceptable because Knox's speaking engagement was long standing and could not be broken.

Stranger still, it took Knox two days to make a statement on the issue. Way back on August 6th, the FOL held a special conference to discuss the Remuneration Act. The resolution passed at that conference has been widely quoted by Knox and other trade union leaders as empowering the FoL executive to take whatever action was necessary if the Remuneration Act was used. So when the Act was used, what happened? The President of the FoL refused to comment until he was 'fully briefed". Not even an initial statement of condemnation!

Meanwhile, a number of unions were calling for a nationwide strike. The freezing workers' award discussions broke off as a direct result of the Government's actions, threatening the beginning of the killing season in mid-October. And strangest of [unclear: all], when Knox finally did have something to say, it was to tell us that the FoL's position would be one "of firm action, but it won't be one of head-on confrontation with the Government."

Basically, the Government brought in a law that cut the ground from under the unions' feet, the FoL made noises about opposing it, and then when it was used the FoL President gave the Government an assurance that it wasn't going to fight. Even the drivers' employers' President recognised what the Government was doing to the Unions! When Muldoon says he doesn't think Knox will kick up much of a fuss, it seems he knows what he is talking about.

I have described Knox's actions as strange. But are they? From the point of view of defending the interests of FoL members they certainly are. But is that what the FoL leadership is really committed to? Does it really have the will and the ability to respond to the Government's anti-worker laws with conviction and strength? It has sold the workers out many times before. Knox and his executive meet today (Monday). Will they sell the workers out again?

Kathy Jamieson