MINING HOLD-UP.

Wairarapa Age, 5 August 1930, Page 5

MINING HOLD-UP.

STRIKE! FOLLOWS DISMISSALS IN (SOUTHLAND. INVERCARGILL, August 4. As the result of the dismissal of seventeen men at the Wairakei Coal Company’s mine, the remaining twenty, it is stated, decided to down tools in a sympathy strike. According to a statement issued by the manager, Mr. J. T. Mosley, the men held a stop-work meeting on July 21 and the management had good reason to believe that they passed a resolution limiting their output to eight boxes per man per day in solid work and ten in pillars and tops. Mr. Mosley proceeds: “On Friday, July 25, a notice was posted dispensing with the services of all men engaged on or subsequently to May 23, 1929, as from August 2, 1930, and cancelling all prospecting work. On Monday, July 28, another stop-work meeting was held and I accompanied the managing ’director, who addressed the meeting, explaining the financial position of the company and referring to the impossibility of carrying on with rapidly rising costs and a decreasing output. We then retired and left the men to themselves. Some time later, the union secretary, accompanied by two workmen’s delegates, met the managing director and myself on the question of restoring the back shift prospecting work and sharing the work with the temporary men. We refused the first two conditions. On the third question, we gave them to understand that, providing they resumed a normal output, we .were willing to either allow the temporary men to share the work or dispense with them 'as the regular hands deeidid. After lunch, the same delegation met me in the office and informed me that they had decided to share the work with the temporary hands. On my stressing the point of a resumption of normal butpul, they merely reiterated their statement albout sharing the work and declined to admit that there was a restriction of output in operation. On my acquainting the managing director with the men’s decision, he instructed me to close down the plant. At a subsequent meeting of directors it was decided to open the mine for work under normal conditions this morning.” Word was received from Ohai this afternoon that the men had presented terms- to the management this morning and that their request regarding the sharing work at the Wairakei Mine had been declined. At a special general meeting of the Nightcaps District Miners’ Union yesterday, the following resolution was carried unanimously: “That in the event of the Wairakei men rejecting the owners’ terms, they would receive both the financial and moral support of the whole district.”—(P.A.)