The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-11-17

in this way the wages of the household
are largely and legitimately increased
Since 1877 more than $50 young men
have gone from Lansford and other vii
lager in the neighborhood to normal
schools and colleges and become min
ing engineers, attorneys, chemists.
dentists. architects, ministers and pro-
fessors.
Some of the foreigners prefer to live
in q very niggardly and squalid man
ner, so that they may accumulate the
large part of their earnings and return
70 Europe to live in idleness; but those
who have their permanent home in the
region have at least 81, 200, 600 deposited
in the banks and savings funds in the
vicinity, saved from the earnings in
the employment of this company. The
annual remittances to. their families
and friends abroad, through agencies
in the region and vicinity, amounted to
100000 or more In 1884 the company.
established a beneficial fund, to which
1t has contributed the sum of $196, SS9
and the employees $154,76S.
During the strike of 1900, in which
the employees of the company declined
to participate. the company. in ac-
acknowledgement Of their loyalty, con-
tributed $4,000 to the beneficial fund.
Conditions Before Strike.
tinues. most of them have Joined the
union and felt bound to join in the
strike when ordered last May No
complaint was addressed to this COM
pany. no grievance alleged, and no re-
quest for higher wages made: but,
without notice, the men left work in
body, against their own will and judg-
ment, because required to do so by
the vote of the miners employed in
other coal fields.
The claim for a reduction of 20 per
cent in the hours of labor, without
any reduction in earnings, for all en-
ployes paid by the hour, day or week,
would be peculiarly absurd if enforced
against this company.
II is point of fact that the break
ers of the company are able to run
only nine hours a day, and not ten
The miners only work from five TO
seven hours a day, and the real diff
ficulty in the region is that contract
labor prices are too high, as the men
get an amount sufficient for their
wants by working less than three
quarters OF day. The men employed
by the day work. as a maximum. only
nine hours, and, as many of them con-
sumo from half an hour to an hour
in going to and from their work to
the foot of the shaft, they do not work
even nine hours As illustrating the
influence of the excessive rates paid
for contract work, il may be said that
during normal conditions in April of
this year the men working by contract
earned only an average of 1902 a day,
but when 1T became probable that a
strike would be ordered the same men
earned an average Of $4.46 a day.
Can't Pay by Weight.
The company asserts that payment
by weight is impracticable at its
Mines continues the statement. "as
each mine constitutes a distinct prob
lem and the conditions vary from
month to month. The only method
which has given satisfaction at the
eompany's workings. it is said, is pay
Rent for cutting coal by the IineaI
yard The rate of payment can be
determined only in each particular case
between the superintendent and the
miner.
Some influence, believed to be that
Of the union" the answer states, has
led the men, to reduce the production.
but, notwithstanding this difficulty, it
remains true that the only way in
which wages can be satisfactorily
measured is by contract for the work
done, which necessarily varies from
mine to mine, and sometimes between
breasts upon the same gangway, and
even upon the same breast, from day
to day
The company emphaticalIy protests
against the miners demand that there
shall be an agreement with the United
Mine Workers of America, and in this
case the answer says:
THE conditions of mining in the
Lehigh and Schuylkill regions are quite
different from those which exist in
the Wyoming and Scranton districts
While this company has no objection.
therefore, to its own employees organ
izing among themselves. It has always
objected and does object even to an
organization which includes other
anthracite fields, working under a diff
ferent system of compensation, as a
result of which its men are ordered
upon strikes by reason of controversies
in which they have no interest.
TT would be still more inexcusable
that any outside authority should as
sumo TO interfere in the discharge of
an employe- Every free man has the
right to work when and as he chooses.
ard the employer must possess and be
able to exercise the right of discharge
/ hsarf 70 IN,