WORK AND WAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 11609, 20 June 1902, Page 7

WORK AND WAGES.

The Waikato Coal Miners’ Industrial Union have tiled a schedule of demands for reference to the Auckland Conciliation Board in the matter of the dispute between their union and the Taupiri coal mines. Replying to a Napier deputation representing the building and painting trades, who asked that the new Government buildings at Napier and the Spit be erected by co-operative labor, the Minister _of Work* said there were many difficulties in the way of carrying out such works by co-operative labor, as different branches of the building had to be carried on sometimes simultaneously and sometimes otherwise. He understood that the object of the deputation was to secure the employment of local men. Well, he was certain that if the jobs were let by tender nineteen out of every twenty employed would bo local men. In connection with repainting the Napier Post Office, he would give co-operative labor a trial, although ha did not see why the painters should pot combine and put in a single tender. He also promised that when the new post office for Napier was built it would be moved back, so as to give more room at that part of Hastings street, as the present building encroached on the street.