COAL PRODUCTION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6240, 10 June 1946, Page 5

COAL PRODUCTION

QUESTIONS ANSWERED AT WAIKATO MINES ENQUIRIES BY LABOUR DAILY Is there any simple and direct solution of the Dominion’s clamant need for increased coal production? Does the blame rest wholly on the shoulders of the miners through absenteeism and restricted working hours as is frequently alleged, or are other factors such as backward min- ( ing methods and lack of modern I machinery and plant also responsible? In an endeavour to obtain firsthand information on these questions a representative of the Southern Cross recently visited the Waikato coalfield fiom which about 15,000 tons are produced weekly. In this and subse- * quent articles the views of the miners’ lepresentative, a State mining official and a colliery superintendent are set out. The human factor was so preeminent in coal production—without miners you could not have coal—that this elementary fact has been used to mislead the uninformed public about the actual position of the mining industry, said the secretary of the Northern Miners’ Union, Mr H. Hall, when asked how far absenteeism retarded production. There was absenteeism in every industry and it varied as statistics showed according to the nature of employment. In light industries and less arduous work it was patently smaller than in the heavy and exhausting jobs, but no person would ever claim that any industry could possibly be fully staffed the ♦. whole year round. “In spite of the alleged delinquencies of the miners,” said Mr Hall, “it stands on record that during the first four years of the war they increased production by 445,229 tons. “This is all the more notable and creditable when it is remembered that Britain, Australia, and United States were not even able to maintain their pre-war production levels in those same years.” The average output per hewer in the Waikato mines, he added, varied from 7.8 tons a shift to 11.3 tons, a rate of production which was as high to-day as at any previous period in the history of the industry. It was probably not commonly known, said Mr Hall, that the hewer received only approximately 5/6 per every ton of coal he produced. That amount was the tonnage rate of about 4s plus extras for erecting timber and such jobs. The wages for other adult workers not on coal hewing ranged from 25s 6d to 35s a day.

knowledge of those figures might assist the city critics, who paid about 10 times the amount a miner received for digging and loading a ton of coal, to have a more tolerable understanding of mining and miners. In any search for a solution to coal production problems the critics would have to look beyond the miner as an individual, concluded Mr Hall. The present shortage of manpower in the mines would only be obviated and the collieries worked to maximum production when conditions of employment were made more attractive. Miners were not highly paid in comparison with other openair jobs of more congenial character, and any attempt to depress existing conditions and remuneration would inevitably result in fewer men staying in the industry. The coal hewer was producing individually as much coal to-day as in the past, said a colliery superintendent, who added there was still a regrettably high incidence of absenteeism. If that could be reduced to a practical minimum it would go some way towards meeting the greatly increased demands for coal. He produced figures showing the output and absenteeism at certain mines over recent years. For the year ending March last the shifts lost by hewers had averaged 33.5 a man and those lost by other workers (day-wage hands and boys) averaged 22.25.

The production per hewer for the year was 8.93 tons a shift compared with 8.9 tons in 1943. The total output of the colliery last year averaged 2.55 tons for each employee as compared with 2.7 tons in 1943. The hewer’s average earnings last year was £507 while the maximum he would have earned by working every available shift would have been £6Ol, as compared with £440 and £555 for 1943.

For the same comparative years the earnings of other mine workers had averaged £383 and £291 respectively. The superintendent said that in his colliery as in others there was a great scarcity of skilled men to hew coal. While the hewer was not always working the full shift each day and left the mine usually before the scheduled hour, that did not mean that he was producing less coal, stated a State mining official. It simply meant that the hewer “hoed in” at a greater rate and was producing his tonnage in shorter time through more intensive work. There was little purpose in insisting on the miner staying his eight hours in the mine when no more coal would be turned out, except that it would ease the strain on colliery haulage plants if the tonnage was transported over the longer hours. A hewer had a physical limitation and he could not continuously hew and fill coal for eight hours at the high tempo he worked over the shorter period. While he might stand the stress of high pressure output over a full shift for a time, any benefit would probably be lost by his exhaustion causing him to absent himself from work on occasional days to recuperate. * The answer to increased production did not lie entirely in manpower for mines. The application of modern machinery was at least an equally important factor, especially in underground transportation.