South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 09 May 1942
Cortonwood Strike
Trouble Over Price List
Eighteen hundred employees of Cortonwood Colliery, Brampton, Wombwell, have been idle this week as a result of a wages dispute, but prospects of a permanent settlement are enhanced by the promised intervention of the Secretary for Mines, Mr. D. R. Grenfell, who is visiting Maness Main on other business to-day, and while there is to discuss the trouble with Mr. J. A. Hall, J.P., the Y.M.A. President.
In the meantime, the men have decided to return to work to-day.
Management Gesture
Yesterday afternoon the proprietors of the Colliery wired Mr. Grenfell stating that they were prepared to re-open the pit on the status quo.
Mr. T. S. Charlton, Managing Director, told the “Times ‘ “We have done this in the interval of coal production. Our decision will be reported to the men, and preparations will be made for a resumption of work to-night.
Mr. Charlton said he spoke to Mr. Grenfell personally on the ‘phone yesterday (Thursday) morning and wired later in the day as promised. The men agreed at a meeting last night to return to work on predispute terms, accepting Mr. Grenfell’a offer to set up a court of arbitration. From the meeting a number of night workers went straight home to don pit clothes so that during the night the pit could be prepared for the day shift. The men also passed a resolution protesting against any attack on the old price list.
Mr. Hall said yesterday, “I have made arrangements to meet Mr. Grenfell at Manvers Main tomorrow. We have both been invited to the opening of a pithead canteen. We hope to have a discussion on the dispute and on conditions in the coalfield generally. A fortnight ago the company announced the introduction of a new price list involving a reduction for coal-getters In the Silkstone seam, and upon the owners declining to withdraw it the men took strike action, following a meeting on Sunday. It is stated that some 250 members of the branch were present and that the decision to strike was unanimous. On the following day nobody reported for work apart from officials and some 60 boys who it is thought, had not heard of the branch decision.
At Cortonwood Colliery two seams are now worked Swallow Wood and Silkstone. The grievance is confined to the Silkstone seam in which some 500 men are employed and less than 100 are affected by the new price list. It is assumed that the others have struck in sympathy.
An official of the branch said the agreement on which the new price list is based has been in operation since May, 1929, when the seam was opened. Payment for goal-getters in the first place was 1s. 9d. per ton but this was reduced by agreement to 1s. 7d. two years later. Later by agreement another ½ d. was deducted in respect to “dirt,’ bringing the rate down to 1s. 6 ½ d. per ton. Under the terms of the new price list the men were being offered is. 1s 3d, a reduction of 3 ½ d. per ton which might affect an individual coalgetter to the extent of 4s a shift.
The price list forms part of an agreement signed by a sub-committee, consisting of two headquarter officials of the Y.M.A. and two representatives of the coal-owners. By their action the men have repudiated this agreement.
Mr. J. A. Hall said, “A. deadlock ensues, and the officials of the Yorkshire Mineworkers’ Association regret that tonnage should be lost at such a crucial time. I should have been pleased if arrangements could have been made for the men to work on the old price-list until a settlement had been reached.”
Commenting upon this agreement. Coun. J. Rose, President of the Cortonwood branch of the Y.M.A. said, “We never accepted these terms as a branch. Our men have never been shown where they could earn a living under these terms. We were led to believe it would have to go to arbitration before the terms took effect.”
Regarding a suggestion that the dispute should have been settled before it got to the point of a strike Mr. Rose said. ”Nobody regrets more than I do the loss of Production at this critical time. but the men have definitely set their minds against accepting these new terms.”
Management Side
Mr. Charlton said he had nothing but goodwill for the men, and so far as the colliery company was concerned it was purely a matter of economics. They could not hope to compete in the open market at the old wage rates. The men had earned 4s or 5s. a day more than the county average for this type of work. Also they allowed general allowances for waiting time. There is a complaint on both sides of delay In intervention.
Mr. Charlton sold that the Mines Department took no action until the last minute. Even now nobody from the Mines Deportment had been in the district so far as he knew. Mr. Charlton said the issue affected only 87 men.