COALMINERS’ DISPUTE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1088, 24 April 1913, Page 2

COALMINERS’ DISPUTE.

Auckland, April 23,

Speaking of the trouble which has arisen between the Waikato Coal Miners’ Union, and the directors of the Taupiri Coal Mine Company, Huntly, Mr E. W. Alison, chairman of directors, said to-day that he did not anticipate the present agitation would come to anything very serious. The position was that certain unionists desired to influence the directors to reinstate the members of the executive who were dismissed during the recent trouble and other miners whose services had been dispensed with owing to the slackening off of work in the mines. For about four months each summer there was a considerable falling off in the output. The union recently wrote to the directors asking for a conference, at which the question of reinstating those men whose services had been dispensed with could be thoroughly gone into. A reply to this request was sent, in the course of which the directors stated : “ The directors are, as your union must be aware, always willing to meet and confer with employees, but in regard to this particular matter the directors think it right to state quite plainly that they have] no intention of reinstating any of the men who were dismissed. No man has been dispensed with without very careful deliberation, and the directors can see no reason for reconsideration of their action.” The letter concluded that the directors could not see that the conference asked for would serve any useful purpose.

At a meeting held in Huntly on Monday a resolution was proposed, “That this union gives the directors ol the Taupiri Coal Mines Company fourteen days’ notice that if all the men are not reinstated within that time they will down tools.”

An amendment to the motion, holding the matter oyer for consideration at a special general meeting, was eventually carried.