A BITTER PROTEST

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 13685, 20 May 1912, Page 5

A BITTER PROTEST

MINERS’ MINIMUM WAGE

Press Association.— I Telegraph.—Copyrigllt

Received Mav 20, 8.45 a.m. ’LONDON, May 19

Ih" Northumberland Miners’ Commitle > passed a resolution bitterly protesting a; ; Hist Lord Mersey’s award, and r ring ■ i ederation Conference to eliminat" m i minimum rate awarded hewers, which it is alleged is below that awarded datallers, after allowing for necessary deductions.

AN INCREASE. Received May 20, 9.25 a.m. LONDON, May 19. The Conciliation Board has increased the wages of Durham miners by 3J per cent. "FIGHT JUST BEGINNING." I'mler the above heading, the Carditl correspondent of the Times, ret erring to the position in South M ales, remarked : - - The 2s minimum for boys is a comparatively small matter ; there are not very many of them. Hut the 5s minimum for day labourers is a very serious item of cost. These labourers are not experts in any sense : practically all they have to do is to till tubs with rubbish. If tlie lowest scale of wage is raised to * a day. the skilled men who receive wages by the day will insist that the margin between them and the unskilled workmen shall remain as it is at present. That is to say. a ripper getting 4s 3d a ■a . . together with a percentage, will not a a > > to work on a scale which docs not give him the existing margin between his rate ami that of the labourer. That the miners’ leaders understand this is show n bv tlu> document presented to tile owners by ihe South Wales Federation hist October. For example, the minimum scale men demanded for assistant tir.ibermeii and rippers, who now receive 4s .‘M a day, was Cs fid. There is, houeier, one objection to the

■five and two - ’ amendment which the men seem to have overlooked. A large number of hewers are paying assistants from ds (id a day. If no adult is to he paid less than 5s a day the miners will h:ue to increase the wanes of their as'istants to that amount, and thus reduce their nun Camillas considerably. Koine eollmrs who are notv earning from 7s 6d to >vs Gd a day will find their earnings reduced below the proposed minimum of 7s 1 j tl to 7s (id. Labourers are sent to he trained as colliers, but they are not worth ds a day to the hewers, and they cannot afford to pay it. It is accordingIv contended that the result of the whole transaction would he a reduction of outout additional cost, and a narrower market for the surplus labour from other trades. If a ds minimum is conceded to th" underground workers, the owners ask. what answer can they give to the surfacemen, carpenters, craftsmen, smiths, and the rest !■* The whole husi:i >ss is like a snowball, and, the owners want the public to realise that the whole of the miners’ demands are interdependent. In a typical colliery in the Rhondda Valley the granting of the 5s minimum would add £SOOO a year to the waves hill, ami fewer than 450 day wage underground workers are emploved there.