Historical information

In April 1914, the Federated Mining Employes' Association, Victoria, put in a submission to establish improved wages for mining employees. A hearing in the Commonwealth Arbitration Court was to be held in four to six weeks from the lodgment of the plaint. The new log of claims would provide for a general increase in the previous log rates. The new rates affecting Victorians were: miners, hard labor ordinary 12/- a shift; sinking 13/4; rising 14/6; underground stoping 14/-; miners, machine labor to receive 1/- per shift in addition to the above rates; timber men ordinary 13/2; shafts 16/2 a man; bracemen 12/-; truckers underground 11/6; open cut miners 13/-; laborers underground 11/-; on surface 10/-; boys between 16 and 19 9/-; over 19 full pay; shift bosses 15/-; tailings dame man 11/-; sluice man 11/-; grating man 11/-; box cleaners 11/-; pump-hole man 12/-; dressers and cleaners 13/-; man in charge erecting legs 12/6; woodcutters 12/6; woodcutter man, horse and dray 1/-/-; blacksmith 14/-; carpenter 15/-; bricklayer 15/-; tool sharpener 13/-; blacksmith's striker 11/-; rough carpenter 13/-; horse driver 11/-. Extra rates and shorter hours for holidays and Sunday work were also demanded. (Bendigo Advertiser 27 April 1914)

Physical description

Printed list of mine employees' wages current in 1914. Card was used in an interpretive display to commemorate 100 years, on the 2nd of May 2014, since the devastating mine disaster at the Great Extended Hustlers Gold Mine. Seven men were killed on 2nd May 1914, in an underground explosion. The event was held on Hustler's Hill by the Bendigo Historical Society in 2014. On top of card: Wages in Gold Mines in 1914.