N.S. WALES COLLIERY STRIKE

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 19

N.S. WALES COLLIERY STRIKE

OPPOSITION TO WAGES BOARD. SYDNEY, January 11. The southern miners’ ballot on the question of resuming work commences today. Some of the mines are making preparations to start, in the event of the ballot proving favourable. The Miners’ Delegate Board at Newcastle has decided to ask Mr Paterson to show cause why he should not be expelled from the federation for accepting a seat on the Compulsory Wages Board. On Mr Bowling’s application, the Industrial Court adjourned the hearing of the charges against Bowling, Butler, and O’Connor (cabled on the 4th) till Monday on the ground that owing to work in connection with preparing for miners’ ballots the defendants had not had time to prepare their case. The first shipment of foreign coal for the Government is expected to-morrow. In order to overcome the difficulty of unloading it through the coal lumpers being on strike, the Railway Commissioners have constructed a number of Priestly grabs, each, capable of raising three tons from the ship's hold in one lift. COAL TRIMMERS REFUSE TO WORK. SYDNEY, January 12. Walsh, the Newcastle agent of the Seamen’s Union, has been summoned to answer a charge of using inciting language in connection with Saturday’s meeting of the Newcastle miners. Walsh was bound over to keep the peace for 12 months and to find sureties for £3OO, with the alternative of three months’ imprisonment. His counsel explained that Walsh had merely desired to protest against "Mr "Wade’s bill, and when lie found that he had gone too far he expressed contrition. The Newcastle .coal trimmers have resolved not to trim any more vessels while the strike lasts. Up to the present the trimmers have worked the few steamers which managed to secure bunker coal. DEVELOPMENTS PENDING. """ SYDNEY', January 15. Mr Hughes predicts crucial strike developments within the next few days. VALUE OF JAPANESE COAL. MELBOURNE, January 13. The Gas Company, which secured a quantity of the Japanese coal that was imported by the Government, has found it excellent for gasmaking. DISTRESS AT COBAR. ' SYDNEY, January 14. There is much distress at Cobar owing to the closing or shortening of hands in the copper mines, as a result of the coal strike. The Government has been asked t» start relief works. From present indications it is expected that a majority of the miners’ lodges at Newcastle and Maitland will support the Delegate Board’s recommendation against being represented on the Compulsory Wages Board. THE OLD CONGRESS. SYDNEY, January 14. _ Addressing a meeting at Kurrikurri, Mr Bowling warmly attacked some of the 1 tans ©f the old Strike Congress. They had now got rid of traitors, and the proprietors were so sick of the fight that many of them were willing to give in. Eventually the new congress, although perhaps nob able to obtain all their demands, would secure an honourable and a peaceful settlement. STEAMER LOADED BY r NONUNIONISTS. SYDNEY, January 14. The non-unionists are loading the Peninsular steamer Palermo. SETTLEMENT EXPECTED SHORTLY. SY'DNEY, January 15. It now .appears that the first shipment of imported coal will not reach Sydney till the 23rd‘ inst. Though not yet completed, it is known Ifeat the Northern miners’ ballot will

reject the Wages Board by an over- i whelming majority. A belief, strengthened by Mr Bowling’s reiterated assurance, is current that a settlement is near, and that when he appears before the Industrial Court on Monday to present the result of the ballot he will submit a scheme for the establishment of a Board j of Conciliation. i j j ‘ CHARGES AGAINST THE LEADERS. : j SYDNEY', January 17. I The hearing of the charges against Bowling, Hutton, Butler, and O’Connor • was resumed in the Industrial Court today. The evidence of the managers of a number of the southern collieries went to show that the agreement between the mine owners and the miners expired in March last, but since then they had been working under the old agreement con- . ditions. The witnesses knew of no real ; grievances that the Southern men had. j RELIEF FUND AUGMENTED. j SY'DNEY', January 17. | The Australian Workers’ Union Con- : j ference voted a sum for the relief of ■ the strikers. j THE BALLOT. SY’DNEY, January 13. Three of the important Newcastle ! miners’ lodges have adopted the Delegate ' Board’s recommendation against being I represented on the Wages Board. j January 14. i The southern miners' ballot will be com- j pleted to-morrow. There is reason to believe that it will favour the accept- ' ■ ance of the Wages Board. | January 16. | i The southern miners’ ballot, which is . incomplete, so far shows a small majority , in favour of accepting the ruling of the ■ Wages Board. January 17. | The Southern miners are apathetic over t the ballot, and proportionately very few i are voting. All the lodges in the Mait- t lafid district rejected the Wages Board, j The Southern ballot covered a dual I issue. The final result was as follows : ’ < For the Wages Board, 958 : against it, [ 855; for the old strike congress, 877; for Mr Bowling’s congress, 910. Many of the miners did not vote. This is only the first step towards a * settlement. According to the secretary { of the Coalworkers’ Federation it is ; , tnoroughly- understood that the Southerners will not return to work before the Northern men. A representative of a Leading aoal j company is responsible for the statement that the Northern proprietors will in- : evitably refuse Mr Bowling’s scheme for : arbitration, and will accept nothing but the Wages Board under the IndustrialDisputes Act. “ FROM BANK TO BANK.” WHAT IT REALLY MEANS. MINERS’ MAIN GRIEVANCE. “ Eight hours from bank to bank.” That is one of the principal claims pub; forward by the men working in the coal : mines of New South Wales (says the Sydney Star). It dees not concern the miners ■ j who “get” the coal. They already enjoy. | that privilege. But it concerne a large body of employees in all the collieries, i such as the truckers, the clippers, the; shiftmen, and even the little trappers, all of whom are, for the most part, 10 hours underground. It was to give the other mine employees the same privilege as that extended to the miners, who work on tonnage rate, and who go into the mine for | eight hours only, that Mr Edden endea- ! voured to get a measure through the New | South Wales Parliament last session, and i be almost went on his knees to ask the | Premier to make it a Government mca- : sure. It is first necessary to understand ■ ! the term “ bank ” as applied to coal I mining. “Bank” means —(a) the “face”; of coal at which the men have to work, (b) j the ground at the mouth of a pit. The ; claim of the men who work in these dark : places’ is that their hours of labour shall ; bo counted from the time they present 1 themselves at the pit’s mouth, ready to _go j below, till they are back at the pit’s I mouth and ready to go home. They ask j for an eight hours’ shift that will com- ‘ price the tirno they are below ground. | What eight hours from bank tlo bank j means is not understood by the public, j The explanation is simple. The men want, | their working day to start from the time j | they enter the pit mouth—either by shaft; ! or tunnel,—and not. as at present, from the i time they reach their working places in , the mine. They desire that they be on ( i the surface after they have been eight j

, hours below; in other words, that their • working hours shall commence at the pithead and end there after eight hours have elapsed. Is it a reasonable request? Let us inquire. The argument generally put forward against it is that other men —city men, working men, etc.—travel long dis- : tanees to reach their offices and the scenes j of their labours, and their “ hours ” do not j commence until they arrive. Precisely so, i but the men of the mines often travel : long distances to reach the collieries, and the pithead is the door of their “ workshops.” At the present time their hours of duty do not commence until they have • walked. perhaps one. two, or even three miles into the bowels of the earth ! There is an obvious dili’ctenco here. Industrial life underground is altogether different from industrial life on the surface. It is necessary to have special laws and special regulations to deal with it, and it is more necessary that the people who frame those laws should understand the conditions under ; which the men work. j It is unfortunate that most of the men who frame these laws, and who make reguI lations for the infliction of penalties, have i never been in a coal mine in their lives, I and have no knowledge whatever of the j conditions of life underground. Eight ■ hours in any workshop and factory or | office should be sufficient for any man. j The laws of health have decreed that it should be less. The laws of almost every land are asserting that it shall not bo more. Yet we have men working in our mines in this sunny land of ours who at certain periods of the year never see the eun, day after day ! Let us take for illustration some of the south coast mines. They extend over a frontage of about 20 ; miles, and include a score of small townships within their range. The pits are for | the most part tunnels in the mountains. ; Many of them a,re miles from a township, , and the miner and the trucker have to walk to the pithead, rarely less than one j mile—mostly two or three miles, —and there I are cases where men walk five and six miles to the pit. There are no trams, and few miners have horses or vehicles. The , roads are rough, mountain tracks. Arriy- ■ ing at the pithead they commence their I descent into the mine. If it is a shaft S they go down with a whizz to the “levels,” ! and commence their tramp to their places, i If it is a tunnel they walk right in. | Should the mine be “gassy” the only | light, the men are allowed is a dim safety j lamp with a feeble yellow ray. only serv- ■ ing to make the darkness visible. If the mine is not dangerous, a sn! utter ing - oil | lamp hanging on to the cap throws a light i from the head into the dim recesses a few feet in front. Most of the men have been j walking asywhere from tlwee-qulrters of an hour to an hour before entering the ' mine. Then their work actually begins ! . with more walking. They struggle along | in the dirt and darkness, in many instances a. whole hour, before they reach the places allotted to them. But it is only here that their recognised working day commences. They toil until knock-off time is signalled, ! and then comes the weary return journey 1 through the bowels of the earth to the pit’s mouth. Ten hours —perhaps more—from : the time they enter the mine until they reach the fresh air ag'aiu ! There is yet a long tramp perhaps of miles to their homes. Then comes more Inborn —washing and scrubbing - the grime off themselves takes ud the better part of an hour. Is this eight, hours’ claim an unreasonable one? ' Should not the underground labourers’s period of toil be said to beem when, having presented himself at his place of employment, ho starts on - a long and painful journey through tedious labyrinths below —stooping - here, side-steo-ning - there, climbing in some places, stumb- ; ling and falling in others? Is it too much I for these toilers in the earth to ask that their day’s work should he held to have ended when, after a hard. “ bullockineshift, thev have struggled hack in the darkness to the pit’s mouth No man who 1 has ever been underground will deny the | justness of the claim. No one except the mine-owners, that is!