JUGOSLAV ROCK MINERS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31098, 29 June 1966, Page 1

JUGOSLAV ROCK MINERS

Seventeen hardrock miners from Jugoslavia said on their arrival at Christchurch Airport yesterday that they did not know whether they would want to stay permanently in New Zealand.

The miners are to begin work on the excavation for the West Arm powerhouse on Friday.

They said that in Jugoslavia it took them two months to earn £65, compared with the £45 a week they expect to earn in New Zealand. The ages of the miners, all single, range from 26 to 35. From the time the miners reached the interviewing room at the airport, officials of the Utah Construction and Mining Company rigidly controlled interviews.

The company’s assistant industrial relations manager (Mr W. Buckingham) asked reporters to put all questions to him, and said he would then ask the questions through the company employed interpreter (Mr Hassin Said, of Turkey). Mr Buckingham refused to allow a reporter of “The Press” to ask the miners whether they were single or married. He also refused to pass on a question about miners’ pay in Jugoslavia. Mr Buckingham said he could not allow any questions

comparing conditions in Jugoslavia with expected conditions here.

Mr Buckingham also objected to a reporter asking whether any of the Jugoslavs were related to each other. Mr Said answered some of these questions without consulting Mr Buckingham. The miners said, through Mr Buckingham and Mr Said that they had come here to earn money.

Mr Buckingham told reporters he was trying to “make things as easy as possible” for the Jugoslavs. When a reporter tried to ask the Jugoslavs what they thought of a statement by the secretary of the New Zealand Labourers’ Federation (Mr P. M. Butler) that conditions imposed on them in coming to this country would make Manapouri •‘the new Siberia of the South,” Mr Buckingham refused to allow the question. The general secretary of the

New Zealand Workers’ Union (Mr W. A. Dempster) yesterday said that provisions of their contract, in effect, meant that if the Jugoslav miners ever smelt of liquor in New Zealand they could be dismissed. “If their behaviour is not acceptable to their immediate superior, they can be tossed out,” said Mr Dempster. Mr Dempster said that under several headings in the contract the men might be deported to their own country for any one of a number of listed breaches. He said he was astounded that workers from overseas should have “signed away their living rights.” Mr Buckingham said that the Jugoslavs came into New Zealand under exactly the same legal requirements as were imposed On any other alien immigrants.

The photograph shows some of the Jugoslavs at the airport