MINE DISPUTE IN WAIKATO

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26127, 1 June 1950, Page 4

MINE DISPUTE IN WAIKATO

COMMITTEE TO MEET TODAY REPORT TO BE MADE TO MINISTER (New Zealand. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 31. The special committee of inquiry into the union claim, which is the basis of the Waikato coal strike, will meet at the Alison mine at 10.30 o’clock to-monow morning and expects to report to the Minister of Mines (Mr W. Sullivan) in the afternoon. All the main underground and opencast mines in the area were idle for the second day to-day. No miners’ meetings were held during the day. Officers of the union, it is believed, have authority to call the men back to work immediately there is a settlement. It is possible, therefore, that the mines, with their daily output of about 3000 tons, will work again before the week-end.

Members of the special committee are Messrs E. Lowe, chairman of the Huntly Mines Disputes Committee, J. Hughes, superintendent of the Mines Department at Huntly, and W. Parsonage. superintendent of Glen Afton Collieries, Ltd. The local disputes committee, to which the Northern Miners’ Union has refused to submit the present dispute over a truckers pay, consists of Mr Lowe, two representatives of the miners and two of the management. It is expected that the special committee will invite evidence from both the union and the management and inspect the section of the Alison No. 1 mine, where the dispute started. Mr Lowe said to-day that it should not take the committee long to make its investigations. The Minister, who was due back in Wellington from Dunedin to-morrow, should have its report in the afternoon. The committee has been set up only to advise the Minister whether the miners’ claim should be met or not. It is said that it has no power to make a decision. There has thus been no nroviso that the miners should resume work before it meets. Railway trucks are being held at Huntly in the hopes of an earb’ o r work.