MINERS' STRIKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1932, Page 8

MINERS' STRIKE.

NO NEW DEVELOPMENTS. * STATEMENT BY UNION. UNDERGROUND CONDITIONS. There are no fresh developments record in connection with the strike of the mine workers at five Waikato mines, and the men -seem to be merely markingtime pending the mass meeting to be. held at Huntly on Monday morning. Since the men downed tools there haves been no negotiations with the coal owners, and the opinion is expressed that if th* meeting of the inen on Monday to continue the strike the Government will have to interest itself, and possibly appoint an independent tribunal. To-day Huntly was quiet, a few men being seen in groups about the main street conversing. To-morrow is pay day, and the wages the men will draw will enable them to manage for a week or two. Mr. R. 11. Roberts, president of tlis Northern Miners' Union, admits that thq mine managers should have the right to dismiss or engage men, and states that he realises that many men must lose their employment at the mines be-: cause of the present depression and fall* inrr off of orders. He frays that when the men at Hikurangi struck, following the dismissal of a number of men, it was because they considered the work could have been shared or rationed, and some of the men retained, without extr* cost to the company. In previous dis-. putes touching the dismissal of men tha mine managers had always given any matters brought forward consideration and had met the men fairly, and lie could not now see why the owners should object to the men wishing to retain pro. tection against what they might consider unfair dismissals.

Mr. Roberts referred to the work miners had. to do and said that one clause which the men objected to them, before qualifying for "wet pay, to work for eight hours instead of si* in a cold underground temperature, in wet clothes and with water dripping from overhead. The owners also want tie men to work eight hours on what is known as "back Saturday." Back Saturday" occurs once every fortnight, and for years past it liad been tha custom for men to work six and a half hours on "those days. It was inhuman to expect men to work eight hours in a saturated before they wera entitled to "wet pay.'