COAL STRIKE IN SOUTHLAND

Hawera Star, Volume L, 5 August 1930, Page 5

COAL STRIKE IN SOUTHLAND

iSEQUEL TO (DISMISSAL'S

•KBSTRIIOTED output denied

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) fiN!YERiGAR|G‘ILL, Aug. 4

As the result of the dismissal of 17 men at the Wairakei Goal 'Company's mine the remaining 20, it is stated, decided to down tools in a sympathy strike.

According to a statement issued by the manager, Mr J. T. Mosley, the men held 1 a. stop-work meeting on July 21 and the management had good reason to believe that they passed a resolution limiting their output to .eight Iboxes per man per day in solid work and ten in pillars and tups. ‘ ‘On Friday, July 25, a notice was posted l dispensing (with the services of all the men engaged on or subsequently to May 13, 1929, as from August 2, 1930, and 1 cancelling all prospecting work on Monday, July 28. ’' 'continued! Mr Mosley. -“Another stop- wot k meeting was held and I accompanied the managing director, who addressed the meeting, explaining the financial position of the company and referring to the impossibility of carrying on with rapidly rising costs and decreasing output. We then retired arid left t'he men toi themselves. MSorne time later the union se'eretary, accompanied by two workmen's delegates, met the managing director and myself on the question of restoring the back shift prospecting work and sharing the rvork with the. 'temporary men. We refused the first two conditions. iOn the third we gave them to understand -that providing they resumed the normal output avc were twilling to either allow temporary men to share the work or dispense with them as regular hands. ‘The same delegation later met mo and informed me that they had decided to share the work with the temporary hands. On my stressing the point of the resumption of the normal output they merely reiterated their statement about sharing the work and declining to admit that there was a restriction of output. ‘On ( acquainting the m-an aging-direct or of the men's decision he instructed me to close down the plant. “At a subsequent meeting oif the directors it was decided to open the mine for work under normal conditions this morning. Word was received from Ohai this afternoon that the men had presented terms to the management this morning' and) that their request regarding sharing work at ; the "Wairakei mine had been declined.” At a special general meeting of the Nightcaps district miners union yesterday, the following resolution was carried unanimously: That in the event of the Wairakei men rejecting the owners' term's they will receive both the financial and moral support of the whole district.