U.S. Coal Miners Threaten Strike

Northern Advocate, 2 April 1941, Page 8

U.S. Coal Miners Threaten Strike

NEW YORK, April 1. Negotiations for a wages and hours contract for the Appalachian soft coal district have been adjourned. In the meantime the Congress of Industrial Organisation has announced that 378,000 workers, covering 85 per cent, of the country’s soft coal output, which is vital for defence, will cease work at midnight, when their old contract expires. The men are demanding a dollar a day increase in pay. The new Defence Mediation' Board announced in Washington yesterday that it had obtained a settlement of the four strikes referred to it by the Labour Department last Thursday. These included the dispute in the Vanadium Corporation plant at Bridgeville. Tear Gas Bombs Used. The police at Milwaukee yesterday drove a six-ton armoured car into a mob of 3000 C. 1.0. strikers at the AllisChalmers works ar,d dispersed the pickets with tear gas bombs. The action was taken when strikers lined the factory gates and stopped motor cars as the day-workers left the plant. From slots in the sides of the armoured car the police fired round after round of tear gas bombs at the fleeing crowd. It was subsequently announced that as April 1 is a miners’ holiday, the Strike threat would not be effective until April 2 so that negotiations could be continued through April 1.