NO AGREEMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 494, 1 July 1932, Page 4

NO AGREEMENT.

Miners Submit Owners’ Terms to Ballot. VERDICT TO-MORROW. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, July I. No agreement was reached at the conference between the Northern Coal Mine Owners’ Association and the Northern Miners’ Union, which concluded at 4.3 G p.m. yesterday after a three days’ sitting. Following the conference the miners’ delegates left for Huntly, where the owners’ final terms will be submitted to the men for approval or rejection by ballot, the result of which should be known tomorrow night. Prior to the reopening of the conference to-day the miners’ delegates met to consider certain amended terms offered by the owners. They reported their decision to the owners at 11 a.m. intimating, it is understood, their wil lingness to accept some of the clauses, but offering counter proposals with respect to the remainder. The owners met separately at 2 p.m. to consider the counter-proposals and at 3 p.m., when both parties came finally together, the owners presented what they termed their final offer, which they requested should be submitted to the unions at the earliest moment. Meeting of Miners. In response to the owners’ request the men’s delegates agreed to submit the final terms to a ballot of members of the union. On their arrival at Huntly to-day a meeting of the Huntly miners will be held to hear the delegates’ report and receive the owners’ amended terms. Similar meetings will be held at the mines on Saturday, a ballot being taken in each case. Mr A. M’Lagan, National Secretary of the United Mine Workers’ Union, accompanied the men’s delegates to Huntly instead of returning to Wellington. At the conclusion of the conference the Hikurangi owners and miners’ delegates held a separate meeting to consider special clauses relating particularly to conditions pertaining to shaft mining as distinct from drive mining, the character of the Hikurangi and Huntly mines differing in that respect. The meeting concluded at 6 p.m. A ballot will be held at Hikurangi on the main issues, similar to that to be taken at Huntly. One of the clauses included in the owners’ final terms is that intended to give mine managers the unrestricted right to engage and dismiss men. In its final form this clause, which is one of the principal bones of contention, appears in a slightly amended form, the word * ‘unrestricted” being replaced by “absolute.” so that the clause now reads: “The manager of every mine shall have the absolute right to engage and discharge men at his own discretion.”