No Loon, He

Almost all of John Lewis' 400,000 soft-coal miners were back at work this week with the best contract in their history. His 75,000 anthracite miners had revamped their own unexpired contract to bring it into line. Not only had Lewis won more than twice the wage gains of other labor leaders, he had also punched a yawning hole in the Taft-Hartley Act.

Massively enthroned at United Mine Workers headquarters, he lambasted the congressional supporters of the bill with purely automatic violence: "The Republican Party sold out to American industry for cash contributions to the congressional campaign. There is one thing about the Republican Congress--it stays bought. . . . Who's loony now?" he demanded.

Certainly not John Lewis, was the inference, and there was evidence to support it. First, he had forced the operators to knock the old no-strike clause out of the coal contract. That would prevent any damage suits for breach of contract under the Taft-Hartley Act. Then, to make sure that mine operators would not go running to the NLRB for help, he had wangled a provision that disputes would be settled in union-management conference.

"Willing & Able." But the big hole was a clause that would keep his miners on the job only as long as they were "willing and able" to work. In other words, they could walk out when they wanted and the law could not touch them. As long as Lewis did not formally order them to strike, their walkout could not be called a strike. The union could not be sued.

And in the highly specialized mine fields there was little chance that the operators could exert their legal right to hire new men to mine the coal, even if they dared. Other labor leaders, who knew that John Lewis was not loony, watched carefully.

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