Bituminous Boys

"The four horsemen of industrial warfare--strike, death, famine and destruction--are gathering near the borders of the great bituminous coal fields."--NEWS ITEM. That means: the Jacksonville agreement of 1924 between the bituminous union miners and operators expires March 31. Unless a new compromise can be reached, 200,000 miners are likely to strike. The Union Miners are ready; they have money in their pockets.* Their organization has some $400,000 stored up for a war fund. John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers of America, "a cross between William Jennings Bryan and James J. Jeffries" (the fighting jaw is that of Jeffries), remains adamant in demanding that the Jacksonville agreement be renewed. His jaw is set for the five-day week and six-hour day as basis of pay. Not lightly will he surrender the wage of $7.50 per day (unskilled labor), which miners have held since the post-War peak of 1920. With such things to fight for and with arrogant confidence, President Lewis and his bituminous boys assembled last week in Indianapolis to draw up their terms. On St. Valentine's Day, these terms will be presented to the coal operators at Miami, Fla., where a new compact will be attempted. The Operators, notwithstanding the fact that 1926 was a banner bituminous year, are having trouble. The soft coal industry, unlike the hard coal industry, is only partly unionized. Thus, the operators in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, who employ union labor at $7.50 per day, have to compete with companies in West Virginia and Kentucky, employing non-union labor at wages as low as $3 per day. With Great Britain mining its own coal again, the union operators will doubtless close many a mine in 1927 unless they can arrange a new wage basis to compete with non-union operators. Soft coal production capacity is 50% greater than normal consumption and rather than mine coal at a loss, some mine owners may even welcome a strike.

*Due to regular employment which was due to recent profitable activity in the coal business.