Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 16th, 1920. INDUSTRIAL DEMANDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 16th, 1920. INDUSTRIAL DEMANDS.

In the course of a reference to industrial demands, the Dominion goes op to say thjit there is an interesting comparison |o he drawn between the demands in support of which the New Zealand coal miners have been practising the 1 ‘go-slow” policy during the last foiir months and thosp recently put forward by coal workers in tl )e United States. The New Zealand miners demanded, uniongst other things, and besides the abolition of the contract system, a fiverday week, with an immediate reduction of the working day to spven hours “bank to bank”, and a. fuyjihgr reduction on January 1, 1921, to si? hours “bank to bank,'' Jn America, the United Mjne

Workers demanded a six-hour day, “front to front" (the American equivalent of “bank to bank”) and a five-day week together with a sixty per cent, increase in wages. In the United States these Coplands were scouted from the outset as pm rely “a hook for hanging up a compromise”, and almost at once were considerably modified by t'hg miners, notably in their offer to accept a day tJi spven hours, of actual work at the face. But thy point of interest is in the circumstances pH yyhi.ch the original demands were .put forward. Acoprxjing ito Mr Gregory Mason, . a Ne\v Yei\i GutJqok correspondent of high reput,e, such jtarge claims would not fm-yp been piafie eyen as an //miking price" but for y focjtfopaj dispute ’ among the United Minp Workers. -The inside story as Mr Mason (tells it, js that John iL. Lewis, who is now only the noting-president of the United Mine Workers, hoP£* fo he elected regular president at the eiectijoil next (this) year. Frank Farrington, leader of the Illinois miners, has the same ambition- Farrington is a r;)djeal. Lewis heard that Farrington was going to make his campaign for president on a platform railing for » six boor day and a. five-day week, On this plat- , form Lewis thought that Farrington would eii(, a big swath among the- discontented miners, Therefore, Lewis stole Farrington's thunder, He had hardly done so when he began to foe} uncomfortable, for Lewis has always ! been u conservative, and he knows v ibafc i the Farrjngiop pingi'amme is' impossible, j The ternis .conservative are | of course, used by Mr Sl.ason in the American sense, and with a meaning corresponding to our local terms of extremist and mo.de.rato. .One of the most mater.ia ; l points »ia,de by Mr Mason js that employment in coalmining industry in ithe United States 11 net nates heavily with ithe seasons. In asking for the si?rh<M.ir (lay gftd five : day week, he observed, Mb? tyittQF? claimed that they were really asking for the privilege of working more time rather than less time than they had been working. It is, thus clear that the American mfopr- put forward their initial demands in ,cireap]stances very much less Favourable than those .enjoyed by the miners jn this country, who are offered steady and unbroken employment all the year round, gyeq so, the American miners heavily modified those initial demands. In the course of negotiation they offered to accept u working day (}f seven hours at the face with half holiday m Saturday. As a standard of comparison with that taken up by the miners in this country tllfir attitude is decidedly instructive.