Colliery Datal Worker
A very common reference heard everyday at the pit, but the precise meaning of I never gave much thought. I always assumed it meant the labour not allocated a specialist daily job - Although in practice datals ended up being sent back to the same place day after day. The majority in my day would be what we called "on the buttons" which were effectively transfer point attendants, that is someone that spent their day where one conveyor discharged onto another. Even when conveyors were 'sequenced'* automatically they still had transfer attendants for cleaning up spillage etc.
*a sequenced conveyor would have devices that detected if the conveyor it was loading onto was running or not and stop or start automatically as required.
|