LABOR MATTERS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 24 April 1913, Page 8

LABOR MATTERS

TROUBLE AT HUNTLY.

BY TELEGEAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, April 23. Speaking of the trouble which has j arisen between the Waikato Coal j Miners' Union and the directors of the j Taupiri Coal Mines Company, at Hunt- | ly, Mr E. W. Alison, chairman of the | directors, said to-day that he did not anticipate that the present agitation would come to anything very serious. The position was that certain unionists desired to influence the directors to reinstate members of the executive who were dismissed during the recent trouble, and other miners whose services had been dispensed with owing to the slacking off of work in the mines. For about four months each summer there was a considerable falling-off in the output. The union recently wrote to the directors asking for a conference at which the question of reinstating those men .whose services had been dispensed with could be thoroughly gone into. A reply to this request was sent, in the course of which the directors stated: "The directors are, as your union must be aware, always willing to meet and confer with their employees, but in regard to this particular matter the directors think it right +p state quite plainly that they have no intention of reinstating any of the men who were dismissed. No man has been dispensed with without very careful deliberation, and the directors can see no reason for the reconsideration of their action." The letter concluded ) that the directors could not see that j the conference asked for could serve any useful purpose. At a meeting held in Huntly on MonI day, a resolution was proposed: "That this union gives the directors of the Taupiri Coal Mines Company 14 days' notice that if all the men are not reini stated within that time they will down ! tools." An amendment to the motion, holding the matter over for consideraI tion at a special meeting, was eventually carried.