Jobs Offered For Miners

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31769, 28 August 1968, Page 28

Jobs Offered For Miners

(N.Z. Press Association)

GREYMOUTH, Aug. 27.

Offers of jobs for Dobson miners who will be out of work when the colliery closes at the end of next month are coming in to the Mines Department and the Miners’ Union from industrial interests and other Government departments.

The secretary of the Dobson Miners’ Union (Mr R. F. Beadle) said today that if the Government agreed to postpone the closing of the mine, all the men would be placed in jobs by Christmas. The Railways Department has offered 15 jobs to Dobson men on the West Coast and the Ministry of Works has made offers from as far afield as Clarence.

The Labour Department and a concrete block firm hope to start a month-long training course at Dobson next Monday. It is hoped that at least 20 Dobson men will take part in the course. A meeting sponsored by the Greymouth Ministers Fraternal will be held tomorrow night to discuss unemploy-

ment on the West Coast. The meeting will study the problems facing displaced Dobson miners, and the difficulties likely to arise for school leavers.

Among those taking part will be Mr Beadle, the principal of the Greymouth High School (Mr J. S. Thomson), and the head of the Labour Department in Greymouth (Mr J. A. Donaldson). For the third day today no work was done at the Strongman State mine. Production is unlikely to resume before Monday, when the permanent manager (Mr D. F. Brown) will return from his holiday. A mass meeting of mine employees yesterday morning rejected a compromise offer made by the Under-Secretary of Mines (Mr I. D. Dick), of a week’s holiday pay in lieu of similar pay at Christmas. The secretary of the Runanga Miners’ Union (Mr

G. W. Ewan) said the men were willing to return to work tomorrow if a manager with a first-class certificate were appointed. The men would certainly go back to work when Mr Brown returned.