COLLIERY CRISIS.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17971, 17 March 1930, Page 7

COLLIERY CRISIS.

VERY SATISFACTORY. RESPONSE TO CALL FOR LABOUR. NO BREACH OP AWARD. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel.—Copyright SYDNEY, March 16. A statement issued by the colliery proprietors describes the response by former employees and Broken Hill miners to the appeal for labour for the idle northern mines as extremely satisfactory. ' A meeting of owners will be held at the end of this week to decide which mines they will re-open. In the meanwhile it is expected that numbers of the miners who have left the coalfields owing to the prolonged dispute will have applied for work. The New South Wales Minister of Mines, Mr R. W. Weaver, assured the owners that they would be perfectly within their rights in re-opening the mines at the reduced rates of pay, as it had already been held by Mr. Justice Beeby that the award under which the miners were working prior to the dispute had long since expired. The Minister said the coalminers were controlled by a special tribunal, the chairman of which was Mr Charles Hibble. His last award had expired some time before the present trouble began. Since that time the owners had been compelled to concede whatever variations the miners’ officials had demanded.