Denaby Management Take Firm Line over Pit Stoppage

Some 420 mine workers employed at Denaby Colliery were yesterday and today to be served with summonses alleging breach of contract.

The summonses were issued on the instructions of the Amalgamated Denaby Collieries Ltd, following incidents which occurred last week.

A statement issued by the company through the Yorkshire Coal Owners Association described the stoppage at the Colliery, which lasted from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday as one of the most foolish ever known. The statement continues:

“The alleged cause of the stoppage was that owing to a breakdown in the shafting of the Parkgate Seam there was no second means of egress from men working in the Barnsley Seam. Had it been true this would have meant that the company was guilty of a contravention of the Coal Mines Act 1911.

“It was quite untrue, however, for there was a perfectly good road through to Cadeby, providing the second means of egress the Act stipulated. The suggestion that there was no second road was one the management very strongly resented. On the flimsy pretext the pit was laid idle. The men lost three days wages and the Company about 3,500 tons of coal, which was badly needed because of the shaft breakdown in the other seam.

“From the time of the stoppage on Wednesday no indication was given of the desire of the men to return to work until they returned en masse without notification or explanation.”

The statement adds that these costly and irritating stoppages are becoming far too frequent and that some of the leaders seem to be badly lacking in a sense of responsibility, and seem to delight in inducing the men to break their contracts on the slightest provocation without enquiry into the alleged grievance, without respect for their own agreement and without any effort to use the machinery provided for such disputes.

Not a minutes work need have been lost, in this case, the statement goes on, and the men have gone back having suffered three days idleness and having gained absolutely nothing.

The breakdown affected some 700 employees in the Parkgate Seam, and it was in the Barnsley seam that the men subsequently stop work, with the result that 2000 men in all were thrown idle