CUSTOM UPHELD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26853, 18 August 1948, Page 4

CUSTOM UPHELD

WEST COAST MINERS NO LOSS OF WAGES P.A. GREYMOUTH, Aug. 17> Unanimous agreement that it had been the custom at the Liverpool and Strongman State mines not to dock pay for stop-work' meetings prior to the coming into force of the 1948 West Coast coal mines agreement was , reached to-day when a special tribunal set up by the Minister of Mines, Mr McLagan, considered the issues involved in the strikes in both mines in June and July when 22 working days were lost; The tribunal, over which Mr A. A. McLachlan, S.M., presided, did not agree on the second question of whether the miners were entitled to claim payment of a ,seven-hour day compensation allowance of one hour for hewers on piece work and truckers on contract or under the bonus scheme on days on which they do not work a full shift owing to attendance at stopwork meetings. This question, therefore, will be /decided by Mr McLachlan. The cause of the strike was deductions made from the pay of workers at the Strongman mine in respect of time lost at stop-work meetings and the basis of the case presented to the tribunal by the union was that the right to hold stop-work meetings of up to one hour each day was conveyed by long-established custom and could not' be over-ridden by subsequent happenings, either the introduction of a seven-hour day or the coming into force of the new West Coast mines working agreement. This was the union claim. The members of the tribunal are Mr McLachlan (chairman), Mr G. E. English (president of the Runanga State Miners’ Union) and Mr F. Connew (president of the Stockton Miners’ Union), union representatives; Mr C. H. Benney (Under-Secretary of Mines) and Mr C. J. Strongman (superintendent of State coal mines). The case for the union was. presented by Mr J. Harrington, check inspector at the Strongman mine, assisted by Mr R. H. Mitchell. The case for the Mines Department was presented by Mr P. M. Outhwaite, assistant Under-Secre-tary of Mines. Mr Outhwaite said that it had been the custom to disregard meetings not exceeding one hour, but deductions were made for over that period on six occasions at the Strongman mine in 1947. He added that s,top-work®meet-ings at the Liverpool mine were mostly of short duration. Relating to the second point at issue, Mr Outhwaite said the management relied on the agreement relating to the sevenhour day and payments associated with its introduction and claimed that a full shift mu§t be worked before a worker could claim the compensation allowance. As a party to the agreement the Runanga union was not entitled to claim for its members the allowance on all occasions. Acceptance by the United Mine Workers’ Union of Mr McLagan’s circular setting out-the conditions under which the allowance was payable bound the Runanga union, which in addition accepted the West Coast agreement on June 3 last. Mr Outhwaite contended that the clause on stop-work meetings crystallised the intention to ensure that a seven-hour day was actually worked in the mines. When the Strongman miners booked a six and a-quarter-hour shift on June 10 they were not paid the seven-hour allowance, and the management contended that it had the right to dock them on tha) date and on June 14 and 18, notwithstanding the previous custom because this condition was explicitly covered by a clause in the West Coast agreement. None of the meetings had been approved by the management, and no approach had been made to the manager to hold them. The tribunal’s agreement on the question of custom was announced 35 minutes after the adjournment, and Mr McLachlan stated that he would give a written decision on the outstanding point.