FIVE-DAY WEEK FOR MINERS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25135, 17 March 1947, Page 7

FIVE-DAY WEEK FOR MINERS

START IN BRITAIN IN JUNE LONDON, March 14. “The Miners’ Union and the National Coal Board have agreed to begin a fiveday week on June 5,” said the president of the Miners’ Union, Mr Will Lawther. “The agreement has given British miners the best hours of work in the world. The cost of the concession will be about £24,000,000 a year.” Mr Lawther made the announcement at the miners’ delegates’ conference, at which the miners also agreed to accept displaced persons for work in the pits on the same terms as Poles. The miners pledged that output would not be restricted under the new conditions, and offered support in recruitment for the industry. Mr Lawther said the new working conditions provided that day workers would receive six days’ pay for five days’ work. Pieceworkers would receive 16 per cent, of average daily earnings for the day not worked and overtime would be paid at the rate of time and a half instead of time and a third. Day workers must work five consecutive shifts except in the case of accidents or if a man was doing coal board or trade union work.