Toward the Deadline

The U.S. was short on coal--500,000 tons a week short. Fuel Coordinator Harold Ickes advised the public: "Avoid panic . . . accept what coal is available . . . exercise the utmost conservation."

Then Coal Boss Ickes turned a hard, accusing stare on the War Labor Board, as he handed back to the owners the last one of the nation's 31300 Government-operated mines. Had WLB got around yet to approving a new mine-operator contract? If not, WLB had better hurry it up. A series of runaway strikes, just at a time when the nation is dangerously short on coal, with winter coming on, and a transportation crisis always possible, would be "a catastrophe."

He had barely got the words out of his mouth when some 25,000 United Mine Workers in Alabama and Indiana struck, reasoning traditionally: "No contract, no work." The nation, recalling last spring's three costly coal walkouts (a loss to war production of 20,000,000 tons of coal, 75-100,000 tons of steel), now turned a hard, accusing stare on John L. Lewis.

John L. Lewis stared blandly back. The walkouts were "unauthorized." He wired his Alabama and Indiana U.M.W. locals: "We all want to avoid any damage to the war effort. ... I hope each mine worker will again sacrifice his personal interests and subordinate his righteously outraged feelings. . . ."

Try, Try Again. WLB, meanwhile, kept right on staring suspiciously at a contract which John L. Lewis and the Illinois mine operators, submitted for approval three weeks ago. After a bitter seven-month exchange of snubbings, insults and threats, WLB believed it had good reason to be suspicious of John Lewis. Grimly determined to hold the anti-inflation line against general wage increases, the Board has steadfastly refused to make an exception of the miners. John Lewis has been just as grimly determined, come hell or high cost of living, to get his miners a raise.

In late August, after WLB had rejected two wage-hiking contracts, Lewis went into seclusion with the Illinois operators, worked furiously and doggedly for five weeks. He emerged with proposed Contract No. 3: an intricate formula which cagily skirts any mention of increased hourly wages or "portal-to-portal" pay. But the new formula (chiefly by upping the hours to 8 1/2 per day) finally adds up to $2 more a day per miner.

WLB sat and brooded, fearful that this new contract was a flank attack on the Little Steel formula and might drive the U.S. into a dizzy wages-prices race.

If WLB gives him the nod, John L. Lewis will have won, through shrewd strategy and sheer mulishness, a resounding victory. If WLB turns him down, John Lewis will be able to point virtuously to his three heaving attempts at a settlement. And his big, meaty finger is still aimed ominously at a deadline: Oct. 31. After Oct. 31, if there is no approved miner-operator contract under which John Lewis' miners can work, the U.S. can do without coal.

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