Coal Mines Act 1931

1 Temporary amendment of 8 Edw. 7, c. 57. s. 3.

During the continuance of this Act, section three of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908, shall have effect as if the words " on not more than sixty days in any calendar year, " and subsection (2) thereof, were omitted therefrom, and as if for the words " one hour " there were therein substituted the words " half an hour. "

2 Calculation of wages.

(1) During the continuance of this Act, the minimum percentage additions to basis rates of wages and the subsistence wage rates in every district shall not be less than those in force in that district at the appointed day, and it shall be a term of every contract for the employment of a workman whose wages are determined by reference thereto that the wages of that workman shall be calculated accordingly :

Provided that, save as herein expressly provided, nothing in this section shall prejudice the operation of any agreement entered into or custom existing before the commencement of this Act.

(2) In this section the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say:

• " Appointed day, " in relation to any district for which wages were regulated on the basis of a daily limit of seven-and-a-half hours work below ground on the day before the commencement of this Act, means that day, and, in relation to any district in which wages were not so regulated, means the first day after the commencement of this Act on which wages are so regulated :

• " District " has the same meaning as it had for the purposes of the arrangements for the regulation of wages in the coal mining industry in force on the appointed day, so, however, that in relation to any coal mine or group of coal mines for which wages were not on that day regulated by a district agreement this Act shall have effect as if for references to a district there were therein substituted references to that coal mine or group of coal mines :

• " Minimum percentage addition " and " subsistence wage rates " have respectively, in relation to any district, the same meanings as they had for the purposes of the arrangements for the regulation of wages in the coal mining industry in force on the day before the commencement of this Act, or, where no such arrangements were then in force, for the purposes of the arrangements last in force before that date.

3 Short title, extent, commencement and duration.

(1) This Act may be cited as the Coal Mines Act, 1931, and the Coal Mines Acts, 1887 to 1930, and this Act may be cited together as the Coal Mines Acts, 1887 to 1931.

(2) This Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland.

(3) This Act shall come into operation on the eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-one.

(4) This Act shall continue in force for a period of one year from the commencement thereof or until the coming into operation of an Act to enable effect to be given to the draft international convention limiting the hours of work underground in coal mines adopted by the general conference of the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations on the eighteenth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-one, whichever first occurs.