STRIKE THREATENED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 6 July 1925, Page 5

STRIKE THREATENED.

BY U.S.A. MINERS. INCREASED WAGES DEMANDED. BY CABLE —BBESS ASSOCIATION- -COBVRIGHT. NEW YORK, July 3. A message from Scranton, Pennsylvania, states that the anthracite miners’ convention there demanded a 10 per cent, increase in wages, while the operators are expected to insist on a reduction on the present scale. A conference between the two groups is scheduled for July as an attempt to effect an agreement before August 1, when a new schedule will be necessary. Air. John Lewis (international president of the United Aline Woriters) threatened a general strike of half a million anthracite and bitumenou s miners if the operators continue tne increasing employment of non-union labour. The union has virtually been driven out in West Virginia, where union-produced c-oal js now 10 per cent, of the total, compared with 90 per cent, five years ago. The ooerators contended that it was impossible to conduct the mines on seven and a quarter dollars a day, the union scale, and closed the pits, which were reopened a few weeks later at a non-union scale of between four and five dollars. Since then the operators in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky have acted likewise. The union leaders contend that this is a. concerted effort to kill the organisation throughout the country’. Government officials are apprehensive of the possibility of a complete lack of fue] tor winter.