COALMINE TROUBLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17650, 10 December 1920, Page 6

COALMINE TROUBLES.

NEED FOR CO-OPERATION.

SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES.

NEW MACHINERY SUGGESTED

[BT TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Coalmine Owners' Association, the president, Mr. W. Reece, said the problem was to keep the mines going to the fullest extent possible, and thus maintain a larger output.

" This can only be achieved by a greater co-operation between the miners and the mineowners," he added. " There must be more settled conditions, so that the mineowners can feel justified in making capital expenditure in development and improvement, in machinery and plant. To attain this end it would appear necessary to devise some method for the settlement of disputes other than at present exists. We have the Arbitration Court, and we have the Local and National Disputes' Committee. The former does not appear ,to meet with the approval of the representatives of the mine employees, and it certainly has been shown that the Court cannot force a number of men to go to work and to continue to work against their will. The Local and National Disputes' Committees, fis constituted, have not proved, during the first year, of their work at all a success. It therefore seems that some other method will have to be adopted for the purpose of settling local troubles, which are covered by arrangements made for a term.

" I think the Dominion should bo divided into three districts—Northern mines, Southern mines, and West Coast mines, the reason being that the conditions vary a good deal in each of these districts, ?.nd the distances are so great. A committee should be set up in each of these districts, which would absolutely settle without any appeal all local matters* in dispute outside the signed agreements. These committees would consist of three representatives of each of the two parties with an independent chairman who, I suggest, _ should be elected by the committee, and who would have a casting vote. "With regard to the fixing of agreements for a term. I think a special tribunal should be set up, which would have the approval alike of the miners, the mineowners, and the public, and although, as before stated, compulsory awards are difficult to enforce, I think the decision of this special tribunal would carry such weight as to have great moral force, and should be accepted by both sides. One of the great blocks, to output is the amount of absenteeism on the part of those engaged in mining operations. I am informed that the average in some mines all the year round is about 15 per cent., and reaches 30 per cent, on the Mondays and Tuesdays after the fortnightly pay. It is very galling to the management of a mine to see a number of places idle. It would appear that it is not necessary for the men to work full time to earn all they desire."