British Coal Mine Trouble Continues: 16,709 Men Now Idle

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1947, Page 5

British Coal Mine Trouble Continues: 16,709 Men Now Idle

(Recd. 11 a.m.) LONDON, August 29. The situation in the South Yorkshire coal strike became worse in some districts and improved in others today. It is reported that the men at the Wdmbwell and Darfield pits are idle. More men struck at Thorne, Bently arid South Kirby. There was only a 60 per cent, attendance at the Highgate colliery. Five of the eight pits in the Mexborough area are working normally, and normal working has been resumed in the Dearnde Valley pit. , . The Coal Board says that over 100,000 tons of coal has been lost as a result of the strike and 16,709 men are idle.

Mr Will Lawther, president of the United Mineworkers, describing the coal stoppages as blackmail, said:. “I, cannot understand the attitude of the strikers, who, it is alleged, have drawn their extra rations as miners and refused to be miners. For men to say they knew nothing about the clause in the five-day-week agreement in which they were asked to increase the stint is sheer nonsense. So far as we are concerned they have to honour the agreement.” Mr Lawther added that there was no immediate prospect of himself or Mr Arthur Horner going to Yorkshire to intervene in the dispute. He would not rule out the possibility of fresh intervention if the situation warranted it, and they were asked to go. They never went to a district unless they were invited. Gallows with the words, “Burn Will Lawther,” were crudely drawn in white paint on a wall at the entrance of Grimethorpe colliery. This is the first outward sign of the bitterness growing among the men, says Reuter. It is thought to be the wort; of young hotheads among' the Grimethorpe strikers. The old miners are annoyed. One said: “It is not necessary. We want no trouble here.” The president of the National Union of Mineworkers (Mr Will Lawther) said: “The original strike at Grimethorpe is shameful and tragic, but these sympathy strikers are worse than irresponsible. They are acting as criminals at this time of the nation’s peril. The Coal Board, as their employers, should issue summonses against the men, no matter how many there may be.” The union’s secretary (Mr Arthur Horner), as “peacemaker,” will address several mass meetings at the week-end. Mounting Bitterness

A correspondent of the Yorkshire Post” says: “No one can talk with the original Grimethorpe strikers with-

out being profoundly disturbed by the way events are drifting helplessly and by the men’s mounting, bitterness, not only against the Coal Board but their own leaders. One cannot escape the conviction that the strike, mistaken as it is, springs from a genuine sense of injustice. The warning that they may be directed to other parts of the country has stiffened their resolution.” The industrial correspondent of the Yorkshire Post fears that the whole Yorkshire coalfield may soon be paralysed by a wave of strikes which would be aimed at breaking the power of the National Coal Board to seek agreements with the National Union of Mineworkers’ to impose lengthened coal-face stints, which would have the effect of demanding harder work and would mean the transfer of redundant coalface workers to other faces.

“Opinion on the Coal Board recently has been moving from increased effort in the present hours as a means of getting more coal,” says the Yorkshire Post correspondent. “The ‘sympathy’ strikers feel that if the principle of an increased stint is admitted at Grimethorpe it may be followed elsewhere.

£3 a Shift

“While the average wage throughout the industry is in the region of £7 for a five-day week, many coalface workers can earn as much as £3 a shift. The incidence of income tax on such high wages and the shortage of consumer goods are the reason why absenteeism among the'coal-face workers is usually greater than among other grades.” Sir Noel Holmes, chairman of the North-East Divisional Coal Board, denied that he had said the men were “sacked.” “I did not use that word, but said the men would be regarded as having terminated their contracts,” he said. “The pit, so far as the Coal Board is concerned, is open for work now.”