SOFT COAL STRIKE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 144, 31 March 1948, Page 3

SOFT COAL STRIKE

LEWIS APPEARS BEFORE BOARD (Rec. 1.5) WASHINGTON, Mar. 30. Forced by a Federal Court order to testify, the United Mineworkers’ President, John L. Lewis, told the Presidential Fact-Finding Board to-day that he did not inspire the 16-day-old soft coal strike. Toward the end of Lewis’s testimony, the chairman of the board, Mr Sherman Minton; asked if it was not a fact that the nation’s coal supplies had been interrupted as a direct result of a letter which Lewis sent to union members on March 12 concerning his demand for a pension of 100 dollars a month for every miner 60 or over, with 20 years’ service. Lewis replied that the letter was a much overdue rpeort on the pension fund under the union’s contract. He claimed in it that the employers had dishonoured their contract by refusing to agree fm the pension plan. Mr Minton asked if there were any other communications, and Lewis answered: “Not from my office.” He added: “If you are trying to show by vour questions that my letter inspired any action by United Mineworkers, you are entirely in error.” Lewis denied emphatically that the pension scheme was uneconomic. The board adjourned the hearing, Mr Minton saying it was able to report to President Truman to-morrow. President Truman is then expected to instruct the Justice Department to obtain a court injunction to' end the walkout.