STRIKE THREAT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23135, 6 September 1938, Page 11

STRIKE THREAT

AUSTRALIAN MINERS FINAL PREPARATIONS ULTIMATUM TO OWNERS FEW DAYS' GRACE LEFT By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright SYDNEY, Sept. G

The coalminers' directions committee to-day issued the following official announcement: "The committee has been working out final preparations for a strike which, it considers, will commence at the end of the week."

The general secretary of the Miners' Federation, Mr. W. Orr, stated that if the various Governments and owners failed in the next few days to indicate their willingness to discuss the miners' claims, the directions committee had been authorised to issue immediate instructions for a general strike.

The miners' log of claims was served upon the State and Federal Governments and the mine-owners on August 22, with a request for a reply within 14 days. A resolution empowering the directions committee of the Miners' Federation to call a general coal strike, if such action is considered necessary, was adopted by aggregate meetings on August 30 of miners' lodges in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania.

At the miners' meetings the speakers' estimates of the probable period of a strike varied. Most of tho meetings on the northern fields were told that it would be about three months. The general secretary of the federation, Mr. W. Orr, in an address at Cessnock, said that it would be about 15 weeks. Mr. F. Lowden, Bulli district president, said that it would he less than three months. At Kurri Kurri, Maitland, Mr. T. O'Toole, secretary of the Pelaw Main lodge, said that if the promises of support made to the federation were kept, the miners would win in a few days, because industry would, be dislocated and the Federal Government would have to intervene.

At all the meetings a straight-out vote for or against the resolution was taken, no amendments being allowed. Generally, the resolution was adopted by large majorities, but at some meetings many members refrained from voting. At Adamstown, on the Newcastle field, those who voted against the recommendation and those who did not vote at all together outnumbered the "Yes" voters.

AIRCRAFT ENGINEERS OFFER TO RESUME WORK (Received September 5, 7.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Sept. 6 Officials of the engineers at the Fisherman's Bend aircraft factory, who have been on strike since August 2 as a protest against the terms of a proposed new award for aircraft work, have offered to resume work with the undertaking to seek the re-registration of their union and with the assurance that the Arbitration Court will reconsider their wages and conditions. The engineers' union was dc-regis-tered during the dock striko in Sydney some months ago.