SAFETY OF LIFE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3086, 17 May 1917, Page 6

SAFETY OF LIFE

MINERS AND MINE OWNERS

WHAT ARE THE FACTS?

One of' the points which the officials of the Miners' Federation try.to make in their statement regarding the recent conference with the employers is that the employers are careless of the safety of the lives of the men employed in the mines. Their- statement contained the following: passage: "Now, to the miner, working conditions, involving the safety or otherwise of life and limb, come before any considerations of increases, and from the point of view of safety, some of the New Zealand mines are amongst the worst south of the Line, as events of quite recent date have amply and tragically demonstrated."

In the light of the facts about this conference it is not ea§y to understand the miners' statement. The federation came to the conference with a schedule of demands contained in 21 clauses. Only one of these clauses had to do with the safety of workers, and this was in effect that in badly ventilated places the shift should be 6ix hours hank to bank, and that full shift wages should be paid. It is stated on behalf of the mine owners that if in fact conditions were as the federation represented them to tho conference, the Government inspectors would not allow any work at all to be done in theee places. ' At both conferences the employers rejected these demands, and the miners at this last conference, as at the first, submitted an amended schedule of demands, coneisting of eight clauses. '■ The point about the badly ventilated places was not included in the eight indispeneible clauses. All tho other clauses were designed to make working conditions easier, and to .make it possible for the miner to make more money, and the effect of them would have been to increase the cost of winning coal, and therefore- to increase the cost of coal to the consumer.