AUSTRALIAN COAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 May 1944, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN COAL

PRODUCTION INCREASE PLANS. (N.Z.P.A. Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 16. To assist in overtaking the coal production lag the Australian Miners’ Federation will be asked to consent to the working of two shifts daily in many New South Wales mines. The request will be made at an Australian conference of trades unions in Melbourne early next moLth. The Miners’ Federation will be told that miners in the Army and munitions work will be returned to the industry as speedily as possible and the Federation will be asked to sanction the placing" of additional labour in the mines by working less skilled men with trained and experienced miners. If the Federation consents it. is expected that about 2000 men will be inducted into the coalmining industry. So far Federation policy has been opposed to the working of a second shift unless therq.are exceptional circumstances.

The Acting-Prime Minister (Mr. Forde) will preside at the union’s conference, ■ where means to increase Australian coal production by about one and a quarter million tons a year will be the principal business for discussion. Recent daily production figures in New South Wales mines promise an increase of about 600.000 tons a year, but coal experts say that even the maintenance of this increased production cannot prevent drastic fuel rationing this Winter. To keep the war effort at a maximum and allow fuel cuts to be removed New South Wales miners must produce 12,500,000 tons this year. On the average daily production for the first quarter of 1944 New South Wales production for the year would fall about 2,000,000 tons short of the required output.