BIG DISPUTE FEARED.

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1911, Page 5

BIG DISPUTE FEARED.

TROUBLE AT WAIHT; “ A CRITICAL SITUATION. * [BY TELEGRAPH —PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WAIHI, This Day. A crisis has arrived in connection with the demands made by the Miner’s Union on the mining companies!; ! The miners and employers were in conference yesterday for a considerable time and the result was made known this morning by a written communication from the companies to the -Union. Excepting a concession of sixpence per .shift extra for surface labourers, now receiving 7s 6d, and one or two minor matters, every demand was absolutely refused.

A special meeting of. the Union Via called for this evening to receive and consider the delegates report. The increa.ses in wages demanded by the Union means an average ’of about Is 6d per shift per man in all branches of mining and battery, wotk.

There is much anxiety in town as /to future developments. ; The trouble involves about 2,600 hands. • -V,.

Mr. R. Semple (organiser of Die Federation) is in Wailu and will/attend a meeting to-night.

The Waihi Daily Telegraph learns that considerable uneasiness is being manifested at Waihi as to what will ‘eventually happen in connection with the demands of Labour and the unrest that .at present exists. The withdrawal of Che union from the operations of the Arbitration Court was a step calculated tdorksita apprehension, and the fact ‘thatr/:a large number of unions affiliated to the Federation of Labour have also similarly, withdrawn, would surely show that- it; is concerted and not individual action;;, So daJ* as the working conditions, in the-ffiiheß are concerned, it has been pointed; duteti) the Telegraph that the present trouble ia really not with the company, but with the system of contract,-in \ogiie. The men realise that some of the contract&ra have made, and are making,- big wages, and though wages men ;working for the contractors receive up to 11s per day£‘it is held that the profits from the labour of the body of men employed in the contract should be more evenly hence the desire- to institute A the cooperative principle, where all will sharia equally in the amount earned, without taking into consideration the actual amount of labour put into the workxfey each and everv man • ;l