N.S.W. COAL TROUBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 174, 24 July 1923, Page 5

N.S.W. COAL TROUBLE.

TERMS OF SETTIJEMENT. A FAKTZAXi ACCEPTANCE. (Received 12.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, this day. Four meetings at the Maitland Fields decided to accept the .coal mine settlement terms. At Ceesnock the meeting exceeded 3000, and there were only 30 dissentients. At West Maitland an adverse vote was carried by 138 to 127.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.) The terms of the agreement arrived at ■between the mineownere' and miners representatives "were ac follow: — The Workers' Industrial Union of Australia (mining department) having carried certain resolutions with the view of preventing stoppages at collieries without the approval of the executive. (1) Pittop meetings shall be discontinued, with the proviso that where it is impracticable for the men to meet otherwise than at the pit arrangements with the management shall be made. (2) Colliery managers shall select the men they require, who shall sign on, after the provisions of clause 4 have ibeen met. (3) The legal right of the colliery manager to dismiss employees shall not 'be questioned. (4) All collieries at present idle, including Whitburn colliery, shall resume work on the came day. All employees whose services were not dispensed with prior to April, 1923, shall be re-employed on 'the day of resumption, and shall eign on and shall foe given the status existing prior to the stop. (5) All rates of pay and conditions lof employment provided -for by anj j awards or agreements in operation shall ibe observed; but where at the time of •the stoppage any dispute existed employees shall resume on the terms and conditions existing iit the time they | ceased work, and a conference or con- ! jferencee between representatives of the 'parties affected ehall tie held forthwith, land in the event of the parties failing to apree an independent person to be 'mutually agreed upon shall hear and determine the issue. The Whitburn colliery, to which special reference is made in the agreement, has ibeen idle since December 20 last, when the whole of the employees, numbering about 300, wont on strike, after a decision by the owners ro dispense with the services of about half a dozen men, to whom they gave the legal fourteen days' notice of dismissal. Aβ the services of these half dozen men were dispensed with "prior to April, 1923," they will not have to be reengaged.