NO AGREEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 5

NO AGREEMENT.

COAL MINE OWNERS.

MEN'S BALLOT TO-MORROW.

MAT DECIDE TO, RESUME.

Another meeting of the Lower Waikato coal mine owners was held in Auckland to-day, when an attempt was made to persuade Renown •Collieries to withdraw the notice posted up at the mines asking the miners to agree to the payment of 20 per cent of their wages being deferred pending settlement of the present trouble. The Renown Comjjany refused to withdraw the notice, and the conference broke up.

It will be fourteen days to-morrow since three of the Lower Waikato mines became idle, but the coal supplies have been approximately the same, for prior to the dispute the mines were working only two days a week, while now the Wilton and Pukemiro mines, the only two operating, are working full time and producing the normal output from the district.

The president of the New Zealand Coal Mine Owners' Association, Colonel W. D. Holgate, stated after to-day's meeting that the owners had failed to agree.

A mass meeting of miners will be held at Huntly to-morrow morning to take a ballot on the question of whether the men are in favour of returning to work.

The general impression, reports the "Starts" correspondent, is that the men will vote in favour of the proposal. , ;

One of the owners' representatives stated in Auckland this afternoon that, although Pukemiro had the same agreement with the men as the Renown, Taupiri and Glen Afton Companies the Pukemiro workers had seeeded. from the district council of miners, as the men had decided not to be dictated to by local unions. There appeared to be dissatisfaction in the district, .and it was quite on the cards that, with the failure of this morning's conference, each mine would make separate agreements with the workers.