Coal miners picket Rotowaru surface mine in New Zealand July 9

Since being locked out July 1, miners and maintenance workers have been picketing Solid Energy’s Huntly East and Rotowaro mines in the Waikato coalfield in New Zealand’s North Island. Some 170 underground and surface miners, members of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, were suspended after refusing to load out coal to protest the breakdown of contract negotiations. Another 35 workers were suspended at the Ngakawau coal handling plant near the Stockton mine in the South Island.

Solid Energy, the government-owned coal monopoly, wants to impose a three-year contract with a total wage increase of 9 percent. The union is seeking a two-year contract with annual raises of 5 percent.

—TERRY COGGAN  
 
 
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