Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 18. July 30 1979
inter to Rising Prices
[unclear: inter] to Rising Prices
[unclear: eneral] wage order is seen by the Go[unclear: ent] as a wage increase in response to [unclear: ses] in the cost of living, while wage [unclear: ses] bargained for by individual unions [unclear: individual] employers are supposed to [unclear: rgins] for skill and established [unclear: rela— among] workers in different indus[unclear: oing] the same sort of job. But in the [unclear: ne] quarter, wage increases outstripped [unclear: ises] by 2.7% - without the benefit of [unclear: ral] wage order. The Government is [unclear: oncerned] at this practice; where the [unclear: ng] people are getting "too much".
[unclear: erefore] the General Wage Orders Act is [unclear: scrapped] and the unions will no longer [unclear: e] to apply to the Court of Arbitration [unclear: general] wage order.
[unclear: e] belief that free wage bargaining has [unclear: o] too high wage increases is not the on[unclear: son] that the Government took this stand [unclear: nesday]. It is a reaction to the FOL's [unclear: prc "minimum] living wage" of about the [unclear: of] the present average wage. The FoL [unclear: the] time of the announcement, pre[unclear: g] its case to the Arbitration Court. In [unclear: l] style, Muldoon, instead of letting the [unclear: reach] its own decision, jumps in, and [unclear: s] the very law under which it operates.