SOFT COAL STRIKE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 143, 30 March 1948, Page 3

SOFT COAL STRIKE

LEWIS DEFIES GOVERNMENT SUBPOENA (Rec. 11.15) WASHINGTON, Mar. 29. Mr JolniyL. Lewis to-day defied the. threat of a Government subpoena and refused .to attend a meeting of the Presidential, Fact-Finding Board, of Inquiry into the soft coal , strike, which shut, down almost the entire industry in the past fortnight. The dispute is on pension rights. Soon after; Mr. Lewis had refused to attend the- -inquiry, he . was . served with a subpoena. Mr Lewis ignored the subpoena, and the Fact-Finding Board decided to apply to the Federal Court to force him to testify. Mr Lewis, in a letter to the board, said he would not appear before it because neither he nor Umwa had .broken the Taft-ITartley Act, and two of the board’s three members were “biased and in honour should not serve on it.”

As a result of the coal shortage, steel rolling mills will be reduced to 65 per cent, of their capacity this week. The railways are increasing cuts in services, and 535,000 workers are now idle throughout the country through the coal and abbattoir strike. Late to-day District Court Judge Richmond Keech ordered Mr Lewis to explain to the Court to-morrow why he ignored the subpoena. Lewis, in 1947, defied a Court order and was fined 10,000 dollars and U.M.W.A. 700,000 dollars