COAL DISPUTE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 97, 18 January 1921, Page 8

COAL DISPUTE

PARTIES CONFER WITH MR. MASSEY PROPOSALS BEING CONSIDERED. The new coal dispute, arising from the alleged victimisation of two men at the Blackball mine, was the subject of negotiation in Wellington yesterday. The Prime Minister (Mr. Massey) met representatives of the mineowners and of the miners during the day, and discussed the position with them. The report of the Under-Secretary for Mines, published yesterday, shows that one of the men has been reinstated, and that the dispute relates now to one man, who is stated to have used bad language to a deputy in November last. The Prime Minister suggested to the parties that, a dispute involving interference with the coal industry throughout the Dominion ought not to bo allowed to arise from a small local quarrel. No definite agreement was reached yesterday, but there is reason to believe that a national dispute will be avoided. After a lengthy discussion the Prime Minister put -forward cerihin proposals to the parties, who are taking time to consider them. They will give an answer do Mr. Massey in due course. Tho nature of the concerted action threatened by the Miners’ Federation has not vet been made clear. Stop-work meetings'were reported to have been held at several of the mines yesterday for- the consideration of the dispute, and the resumption of the go-slow policy on a national scale as a meth’od of securing the reinstatement of the man Henderson by the Blackball Company is stated to have been approved by these meetings. Henderson is at present employed as a checkweighman by the union at Blackball. Tho go-slow would not lie abandoned until the Blackball Company had reinstated HendersSn, Mr. Arbuckle told a reporter yesterday afternoon. The reinstatement of M’Laggan (whom the company had offered to re-employ) would make no difference, he said, so long as Henderson was refused employment.

“GO SLOW” IN THE WAIKATO. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, January 17. It is reported that the miners employed at the Pukemiro, Rotowaru, and Taupiri Extended mines have adopted the “go-slow” policy, the men undertaking not to earn more than 19s. 2d. per day, the minimum fixed by the national agreement of February last.