INANGAHUA MINERS’ UNION.

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1929, Page 5

INANGAHUA MINERS’ UNION.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Allow me space to vent some inconsistencies of our Miners’ Union freely disbussed in this camp last evening. After my few days in Reefton I learned that the late strike at Reefton was just the opposite to the. one at Blackball, and has made our Union unpopular. One time the Inangahua Union was for the employees. The newest take-up for our Miners’ Union is that a Public Works bridge contractor is a member of the Inangahua Miners’ Union, and only the otlier day

a friend of mine applied for a job. He was told that he Would get a job if he gave the Reefton Union 16/ and became a .member. The sixteen bob was paid to the Union and he got a job on the Public Works bridge. I suppose the next move will be to take into our Miners’ Union slaughtermen and master butchers. We are no longer a union for employee miners, we seem now to belong to a vicious circle. The time has arrived for us to think before it is too late. It costs us £6 to £8 a week from our Union’s/funds for our secretary; just as much as it cost to run the total paid to the six secretaries of the ether (least TVTihers’

Unions, and each had a larger membership than ours. The secret p ies of all the other’ unions take on some work from the owners, and it helps the Union»funds. Our Union lately has got the newest capitalisitc notions in got the newest capitalistic notions in. New Zealand. I wonder if Mr Ernie Spencer, our general manager, and our mine medico (Dr Wicken) and the Inspector of Mines can be yarded up into our Union. I have never heard anyone here objecting to a miner rising out of the miners’ ruck to be an employer. ’ Any “cockey” can come from Canterbury, be an employer, and don’t join the Union (and there will be no stop.’; work meeting). A miner should have the same chance to rise to the stage of an employer and take the risk of making his fortune or losing one. Once a>• miner is on wages it does not mean ), that he is always to remain in the | same old rut. —Yours etc., MINER. “ Waiuta, November 6.