CONCILIATION COUNCIL

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22112, 7 June 1937, Page 14

CONCILIATION COUNCIL

CANTERBURY COAX-MINE WORKERS FULL AGREEMENT REACHED Full agreement was reached in Conciliation Council on Saturday morning in the hearing of the Canterbury coal mine workers' dispute. Mr S. Ritchie, Conciliation Commissioner, presided. The employers'- assessors were Messrs C. E. Purchase, C. Green, E. Charles, and D. I. Macdonald. The employees' assessors were Messrs A. McLagan, W. Hinks, H. Mason, and F. Mitchell. It was agreed that ordinary working time at all collieries should be five days a week; but the management should have the right to have necessary development, repair, and maintenance work done on Saturday, and paid for at ordinary rates when such work could not be conveniently carried out on other days. Development work did not include the driving of Daily hours of work should be:— Underground workers, eight hours bank to bank; surface workers, eight hours, exclusive of meal times. On Saturdays the hours should he:— Underground workers, seven hours bank to bank on day shift, and six hours on back shift; surface workers, seven hours on day and six hours on back shift, exclusive of meal ton s. The hours at the mines in the Mount Somers district during May, June, July and August should not be more than' 87 a fortnight, with not more than 47 in a week. Men working on Saturday should be guaranteed a full day's pay. During the remainder of the year the ordinary hours for the Canterbury district should apply to this area. Men in wet places should work two hours less than a normal shift bank to bank, and be paid for a full shift. The definition of a wet place was one where a worker could not avoid having his clothing saturated with water within three hours of starting work. Wages were agreed upon as follows: „. , Underground workers: Miners working at face on day wages, 21s a shift; shiftman, first-class, 20s 2d; secondclass, 19s (miners taken from face for other work to be paid 21s for first three days and thereafter 20s 2d); shot firers, 22s 6d; shiftmen doing stone work, first man 24s 6d; second man, 19s 6d; truckers, rope-road attendants, horse drivers, pit-bottomers, and winchmen from 14 to over 19 years of age, from 7s 6d to 19s, according to age. . . . General surface workers received a corresponding scale, ranging from 7s 5d to 17s 7d for employees from 14 to over 19 years of age. Extra payment of 6d an hour was to be paid to men employed on the back shift. Men on the night shift were to be paid 9d a shift extra, and men continuously employed (for a period longer than a fortnight) on the night shift Is 6d extra.