MINERS' FEDERATION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 75, 22 December 1920, Page 7

MINERS' FEDERATION

LETTER TO THE EMPLOYERS

THE COST-OF-LIVING BONUS

When the mine-owners refused to consider the request of tho Miners' Fedenv tion-for a cost-of-living bonus of 20 per cent., they quoted in their letter to tho federation a clause providing that during the term of the national agreement there should be no amendment rf the. rate.? of pay or the bonuses. Arljiicklo, on behalf of the federationXhas framed a reply iu which he admitx. that tho owners are right in stating lf-&: it was an expressed condition there should be no further increases,' ■ They are right, according to Mr. Arbuckle, "so far as tlie agreement goes." "It is not correct," Mr. Arbuckle proceeds, "to say that we would not have the right to keep pace with the cost-of-living increase while the owners have had the right to increase the price of coal to the. general public, a right they have' availed themselves of in a great many cases.. It is pure bunkum, and may go down with those unions who aro prepared to allow the Judge of an Arbitration Court (who receives about hi much a month as a workor receives a year) ■to smy what , their standard of living shall be, and who in all cases accept the standard set by tho employers. We, on the other hand, are not prepared to accept the decision, of the owners, or the decision of an institution which recently gave the workers a taste of its class bias attitude."

.With regard to a request from the owners -that: the federation should take immediate steps to remedy a breach of the national agreement at Blackball, where the miners are all»ged to be "going slow;," Mr. Arbuckle says:-"If this is the case, then the company has only itself to : blame -tor its policy of vindictive victimisation of members of that union. Regarding the breaking of the national agreement, this lias been the policy of the owners from the moment tte agreement was signed.' In fact, the iiifc was not dry on the paper before the agreement was broken by several of tho owners, and, this last act of theirs in dismissing Henderson, and then trying to justify their action by a cock-and-bull story- that Henderson used abusive language to the doputy, cannot be accepted by this organisation, and our advice is, if they wish the conditions at .Blackball to return to normal, to act towards the union as they wish tho union to do m return."