THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, November 2, 1943. AMERICAN COAL CRISIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25372, 2 November 1943, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, November 2, 1943. AMERICAN COAL CRISIS

The coal-mining crisis in the United States is a development of the trouble in the industry which came to a head last May, when some 500,000 miners, members of the powerful United Mine Workers’ organisation led by Mr John L. Lewis, ceased work on refusal of their demand for a wages increase of two dollars a day above the stabilised basic rate of seven dollars. In terms of the Anti-inflation Act of October, 1942, the War Labour Board was required to stabilise wages as at September 15 of that year. The board produced what became known as the “ Little Steel ” formula, placing a ’ceiling of 15 per cent, on wage advances, with provision for higher adjustments according to special circumstances. Mr Lewis, for the miners, declined to negotiate with the board at all, and a nation-wide strike, which lasted several weeks and gravely prejudiced war production in the heavy industries, was ended in June last on the basis of a compromise settlement. A majority of the mines were brought temporarily under Government control by the Secretary of the Interior, Mr Harold Ickes, acting as Fuel Administrator, and the United Mine Workers’ president ordered the men back to work on the understanding that, pending the drafting of a new wages contract, they would stay on the job until October 31 as Government employees. The instruction to work was, however, subject to the important qualification that it would terminate automatically if Government control were vacated before the end of October. It was held by the War Labour Board that the situation was altered by Congress’s subsequent enactment of the ConnallySmith Labour Disputes Act, raising statutory barriers against strikes without notice and a formal secret ballot. On August 24 Mr Ickes returned control of 53 mines out of a total of 3800 taken over, to the owners, and this action was viewed as representing the intention of the Government to “ call a showdown ” with Mr Lewis. The latter at that time refused to comment on the action of the Fuel Controller, mainly for the reason that he had concluded what he described as a model agreement with the Illinois coal producers for a new hours and wages contract, which he had forwarded to the War Labour Board for consideration. This agreement proposed to grant the miners on all the soft coal fields increases totalling about three dollars a day, including one dollar twenty-five cents a day for underground travel pay, instead of the over-all increase of two dollars originally requested. The board refused to authorise the new contract, taking particular exception to the so-called portal-to-portal allowance on the grounds that the miners’ union had failed to establish that payment for underground travelling time was not an indirect wage increase in violation of the wage stabilisation policies. It offered the alternative of a higher wage rate for a longer working week, on the basis of time and a-half after the seventh hour in any day without rigid insistence on the 48-hour week, but this arrangement was declined by Mr Lewis, who asserted that it would actually involve the miners, presumably on a reckoning of the new rate against the longer hours contemplated, in the loss of four and a-half cents an hour. It is apparent now that the union does not intend to surrender its demand for the Illinois contract. When the first of the men to go out again were ordered last week to return to the pits, their spokesman declared that they would do so only after the drafting of a satisfactory contract. The present indications are that the strike will again assume the proportions of the May-June stoppage, and President Roosevelt has threatened ' that lie will himself take decisive action to ensure that the coal needed by the nation is mined. Output has already been seriously reduced, owing to what Mr Ickes has described as “ enormous absenteeism and indifference ” on the part of the miners, to a figure below the year’s estimated needs. The strikers have been warned that, if they persist in their refusal to work, the Government will again take over the pits and cancel the miners’ draft preferments and employment privileges. Whether, in that case, the Government could find other labour to produce the coal needed has not been made clear. It is possible, however, that the last-minute offer of the War Labour Board, made oh the President’s initiative, to guarantee the men against loss under the suggested new agreement may prove acceptable to the union, or may at least enable a general return to work while the case for a wage increase is further examined.