STRIKE DECLARED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1941, Page 6

STRIKE DECLARED

IN APPALACHIAN MINES SETTLEMENT DEMANDED BY ROOSEVELT. ESSENTIAL TO NATIONAL DEFENCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 15. The United Mine Workers of America announced that the Appalachian ccal mines will shut clown at midnight tonight. The strike involves 53,000 men in mines which supply the nation’s major steel corpora l tions. Stating that it was essential for national defence that coal production should be continued without delay, President Roosevelt asked the United Mine Workers chiefs and steel company leaders, who conferred with him at the White House yesterday, to carry on negotiations for settlement of their dispute. The President issued a warning that if legislation, became necessary to ensure production of coal, Congress without question would pass it. “The Government will not order, nor will Congress legislate ordering, compulsory unionism,” he said. “It is true that by agreement in many plants compulsory unionism operates, but this is the result of legal collective bargaining, not of compulsion. “I am asking you, please, to talk over this problem. If you cannot agree today, keep on conferring tomorrow and on Sunday, and let me have some kind of report on Monday-*a report of agreement, or at least that you are making progress.” The president of the United Mine Workers, Mr John L. Lewis, had a long conference with executives of the steel companies. The Chicago correspondent of the “New York Times” reports that Presidential intervention is expected next week to avert the national railroad strike which is scheduled to begin on December 7. The threat of a tie-up grew stronger today as union men studied instructions governing the conduct of the strike. Rules were rushed to the 10,000 local chairmen of operating brotherhoods with a membership of 350,000 railwaymen.