Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-10-15
Misteltameulls geading.
REAL CAUSE OF THE STRIKE.
1t Was Precipitated By Miners Be
cause of Dissatished Labor.

1t Was Precipitated BY Miners Be-
cause of Dissatished Labor.
A Boston business man recently
wrote to the editor Of the Scranton Tri-
bune, the leading paper Of Northeast
ern Pennsylvania. asking him for some
light on the conditions Of the work of
the coal miners. The following Is the
reply:
Replying to your inquiry Of the 1st
instant, T. will try to explain mining
conditions to you as briefly as possible.
1.-THE miner drills the hole in the coal
seam, inserts the powder, fires the blast
which knocks the coal down, and then
takes a rest, while his helper pulls the
coal out and loads it into the mine car.
A miner in four to six hours, with easy
work, can ordinarily knock down
enough coal to keep his helper busy
for eight or ten hours or longer. The
miner is paid by the car in this region,
averaging about dollar a car, and the
usual days work Is six cars, holding
about 1000 pounds Of lump coal, rock
"bony," and slate.
"Of this Sc gross earnings the miner
pays 50 to the laborer and keeps 81 for
| himself, out Of which he must pay for
| the powder he uses, oil, wicks, fuses
and the sharpening Of his picks. In
some places the unit Of pay is the
square yard of coal in the seam, and
in others a weigth unit of 2,75O pounds,
it being claimed by the operators that
on an average it will take from 2.75O
to 5000 pounds Of gross coal (that is
coal as it comes from the seam) to
net one ton Of $3.50 pounds of coal as
prepared at the breaker for market.
The miners claim that where the
unit of payment is the mine car the
car of today is bigger than in years
gone by and continually growing. One
of their jokes is that the mine car Is
made of live oak.
However this may be, (and my
personal belief is that there Is just
about as mucn honesty on one side rs
on the otherO it is fact that the in
dustrious miner averages, net, per
month, for about 20 days work Of from
four to six hours day, all the way
from $50 to $100 month. and could
make twice as much IL he would blow
enough coal to keep two helpers en-
ployed instead of one. Today miners
who are 'scabbing' work as high as ten
chambers apiece and earn, In some
cases $40 a day. But it is a peculiar
fact that under normal conditions the
miner does not seem to be ambitious
to do more than one chamber at
time, or to work beyond five or six
hours a day.
"The real cause Of this strike was
that the miners helpers, who are most
ly foreigners, had got it into their
heads that the miners were not making
fair divide. They were organizing
mine laborers' movement to force
the miners to divide even. The opera
tors have nothing to do with hiring
the helpers. They are hired by the
miners themselves. To avert sub
strike among their 'butties,' as the Ia
borers are called, the miners swung the
general strike, ostensibly for the points
set forth in their published demands
but in reality to enable the union TO
control discipline and thus put 1t be-
yond the power of the laborer to re-
volt.
I'm the mines are also many COM
pany hands, men paid by the month
to run engines. act as fireman, attend
to the pumps, etc. The unions demand
for an eight hour day was to enlist
them in the strike. They are getting
good wages engineers, $50 to $50 a
month for long hours but light work,
and others in proportion. Nine-tenths
of these men were entirely satisfied
and many of them refused to go out.