“At a meeting today in Sydney involving national and southwestern district officials of the miner's union, a possible short term and at least a part funding arrangement to make available some unpaid wages to Gujarat employees was discussed,” a CFMEU spokeswoman told ILN.

“The proposal will require discussions with Gujarat hierarchy and binding commitments from them, as well as support from other parties.

“Understandably, the union is not prepared to make further comment at this stage whilst the proposal is being worked on.”

CFMEU said it remained committed to keeping Gujarat’s two underground mines open and operating.

But it clarified that it would not operate or finance coal mines.

The union further said it was not responsible for financial problems besetting operations and “cannot be expected to fund members unpaid wages”

“Unions, including ours, successfully lobbied the previous federal Labor government to enhance the fair entitlements guarantee scheme, so that 90% of accrued entitlements were available to employees and has successfully sought amendments to the coal industry long service leave scheme to ensure those entitlements are not lost if, ultimately, NRE Gujarat falls over,” the CFMEU said.

“Following on from today's meeting, a meeting will be held tomorrow morning with local mine delegates and district and national officials.”

The 450-strong workforce missed out on their expected wage payments last week, with unions and the company hopeful that a cash boost from a long-anticipated Gujarat share offer to India’s Jindal Steel and Power will solve the crisis.

Even if it is approved on October 16, Gujarat reportedly told its workers they would have to wait at least three more weeks to be paid.

Last week Gujarat apologised for the inconvenience caused by delaying its weekly wage payments.

It expects operations and cash flow to stabilise once Jindal’s share offer is accepted at a general meeting on October 16 and said the meeting was initially planned for September but postponed due to “procedural issues”

“We hope to make the payments as soon as possible and to keep the delay to an absolute minimum,” Gujarat executive chairman Arun Jagatramka said on Thursday.

Jindal aims to buy $A66 million worth of Gujarat shares at 20c each through the share offer.

Gujarat has also skipped on making superannuation payments since about March.

Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia, which has about 100 members across the Gujarat operations, previously told ILN that employees were aware of this for a number of months.

“The company has always undertaken that as soon as the money and the deal comes through with Jindal that those payments will be made,” APESMA collieries staff division director Catherine Bolger told ILN earlier this week.

“The deal with Jindal is just taking longer than expected.”