Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 6. April 2 1979
Free in Theory
Free in Theory
The Government is very fond of telling people these days about how carefully it has guaranteed the rights of free wage bargaining. The threat to implement regulations that will compulsorily withdraw the new wage agreement between maritime engineers and their employers puts this in a different light.
Labour Minister Jim Bolger said: "I believe the agreement was freely entered into between the parties and signed by them. I don't believe that's in dispute". You'd have to go a long way to find a better definition of free wage bargaining. Yet now that Bolger thinks threatens the Government's policies comes along, he reveals his true colours. Free wage bargaining, as the Government sees it, is all right so long as it doesn't favour the workers too much.