NEW MINERS' UNION

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10718, 27 September 1912, Page 5

NEW MINERS' UNION

UNDER THE ARBITRATION ACT

STRIKE METHODS ABANDONED

CBu Telegraph—Vrm Association.) WAIHI, Last Night.

i A deputation consisting of delegates j of the new Union to be registered under the Arbitration Act, waited upon ! tho representative of the AVaihi Company, the Grand Junction, and Extended Gold Mining companies this afternoon, and received n definite assurance that the present rate oi wage woidd not be altered pending the drawing up of a formal agreement and registration under the Arbitration Act. They received a hearing, and several matters were discussed bearing upon the position of the new TJnion. J As the recognised voice of the manual workers in the Ohinemuri -mining ' industry, the members of the deputation keenly resented the assertion of the Federationists that the Union was a company's Union, asserting that the new Union was formed on their own initiative. ' Tho new Union is about 100 strong, ' and it is understood that this number will bo largely augmented by tho end ' of the month. I Mr T. Walsh, secretary of tho Auckland Council of the United Labour Party, addressed the new Union at Waikino on Wednesday on-the benefits of arbitration methods of settling disputes. ~Mr Walsh interviewed said that the registration of this Union was the | turning point in the history of the labour movement in New Zealand, and indicated that the workers of 'New Zealand had found the strike 1 method was no satisfactory way of bettering the workers' conditions. Strikes were tho only weapons of the 1.W.W., and the action of tire Waihi 'men in repudiating their tactics was the forerunner of the nltimate disappearance of tho J.W.W. as an ac- ) tive factor in New Zealand industrial JMttors,