BRITISH COALFIELDS

Evening Star, Issue 22626, 19 April 1937, Page 9

BRITISH COALFIELDS

STRIKE PRDPDSAL BALLOT' PEACEFUL OUTCOME EXPECTED (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, April IC. A vote has just been taken on all the coalfields in Britain on the question of strike action in connection with local disputes, which have been in progress for some time in Nottinghamshire. Two points are involved, according to an account of the matter which the Secretary of Mines (Mr H. F. Crookshank) gave the House of Commons. He thought both arose out of the presence since 1926 of two rival unions in the area—one autonomous and the other affiliated to the Mine Workers’ Federation of Great Britain. After the strike last November at Harworth Colliery the owners wished to make membership of the autonomous union a condition of re-employment. The condition was later withdrawn, butthe question of victimisation of men was involved. The Hanvorth \strike remains in dispute. In the meantime, through tho good offices of the Mines Department, the leaders of the two unions negotiated on the basis of amalgamation, but the Mine Workers’ Federation executive later decided to proceed with the amalgamation scheme pending settlement of the victimisation question, and decided to take 'a ballot of tho whole country on the question of enforcing the principle of freedom of organisation, which they claim is challenged by the refusal of the company to recognise the union affiliated to the federation. The company, on the other hand, which recognises the autonomous union, is prepared to negotiate the questions at issue if and when the amalgamation scheme is canned through. The questions are so near to settlement and a general coal strike in the near future is felt by the public to be so out of proportion in its effects to the issues left unsettled that a widespread helief in a peaceful outcome prevails.