NOT FINAL?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 201, 25 August 1937, Page 13

NOT FINAL?

STRIKE SETTLEMENT. '' • i COALMINERS IN N.S.W. MAJOR ISSUES UNDECIDED. (From Our-Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 19. As was generally anticipated, the miners or their industrial organisations have accepted the terms secured for them by their representatives at the compulsory conference arranged by the Industrial Commission. The rise in wages both for day and contract workers represents a distinct victory for the men, and they will benefit financially to an extent which cannot fail to react beneficially upon our industrial and commercial system. Apart from this, it is an immense advantage for the whole community to avoid the dislocation of trade and the waste of productive power that a prolonged strike would have occasioned, and the "Sydney Morning Herald's" many readers have no doubt followed its lead by congratulating themselves upon their fortunate escape. While the threatened strike has been averted, at least for the time, it would be a mistake to regard this settlement as anything like a final solution of the perennial "trouble on the coalfields." Even the "Herald," in spite of its conservatism, admits that the men have grievances which demand adjustment, and that something radical must be done to check the decline of the industry and the steady increase of unemployment at the coalfields. "Spectre of Unemployment."

The "Sun'" goes much further, pointing to the disastrous effects of the competition of oil upon coal production and terrifying spectre of unemployment which haunts the dreams of the worker throughout the world to-day. "In spite of the very satisfactory conclusion of the differences proprietors and miners, much remains for arrangement before the basic problem can be solved." A far stronger and more significant comment on the settlement and what it has left undone, is supplied by the "labour Daily," which always maintains extreme views in regard to the coal industry. "Declaring that they had been unable to secure agreement with the coal owners on the major issues of a shorter working week, pensions schemes for miners over the age of 60 years, improved safety regulations and the solution of the mechanisation problem, the officers of the Miners' Federation have secured the endorsement of the compromise terms embodying partial restoration of wages offered by the owners." In this grudging way the "Labour Daily" seeks to minimise the importance of what has been gained— "an additional paltry £250,000 a year" —and to lay stress on all that remains to be fought for and won. r > "Not One Bay of Hope."

In an editorial last Saturday it quoted anew the statistics published by the Miners' Federation, showing that since 1929 about 10,000 miners here have become permanently unemployed, and that while it took 22,000 miners to produce nearly 7,000,000 tons of coal eight years ago, fewer than 13,000 miners are now producing nearly 9,000,000 tons of coal, while they get nearly one million pounds a year less in wages than in 1929. Admitting. thg_necgssity„for a temporary^"com promise, tlie* - "Labour Daily" points out that "the 10,000 idle miners are, still dispossessed and are to remain so, the 'speed'up' in the industry is still ;to proceed at an inhuman rate of the future has not one ray of hope for those who depend on coal-mining for a livelihood." Its conclusion-is that "the miners, if they •'don't 'determine upon industrial action .to obtain economic justice, must prepare to use the whole of their force and influence politically to obtain a final and effective solution of the problems wrapped up in coal." This is the spirit on which the coal miners and their leaders regard the phrase "the first round," constantly used on the. Northern coalfield in discussing the dispute, about wages, and the hints about "the next move," which the leaders and the Labour movement have dropped freely, for this settlement covers only wages, and even that compromise may not endure long.'