The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-03
For the Good of
 the Community

adjusting any differences that may arise between them and their employees.
 The creation of an industrial relations committee at each mine in which the en- ployes have equal representation with the company will tend to lessen friction, and where disagreements do arise it provides the way for settlement by the persons affected, and immediately.
 Contracts of employment, like all other contracts, must have the element of mutQallty. A contract means the offer and acceptance of a proposition. The em- ployer and the employe must agree to the terms, and all of the terms and conditions, to make 1t really contract.
 If in the performance of their respec- tive duties under the provisions of a con- tract either party feels that the other is not doing all that is required of him he has, and he should have, the right to bring the breach to the attention of the other. When they get together and talk over the matter a satisfactory adjustment nearly always results.
 In the event the disagreement is such that an adjustment cannot be effected between the employer and the employe, or by the industrial relations committee, as provided in this new scheme, the ena- ploye has the right of appeal to an umpire, a disinterested party whose expenses are paid by both sides to the controversy, and who, therefore, is under no more obliga- tions to the one than the other.
 The scheme as announced by the opera tors does not become effective until &C., cepted by the employees to whom 1t will be submitted at an early date Then if the employees accept an election will be held at which they will select two of their num- Der to.SerVe on the committee. This com mittee will not entail a single penny of expense on the employees. The two men that serve on the committee will receive full pay for the time actually occupied in hearing grievances and adjusting diff ferenceS
 Forenen and salaried officials are in- eligible to membership on the committee, either as representatives of the company or the employees.
 There has been very little trouble be- tween the operators and the miners in this district in recent years. The late Judge Selheimer, who acted as umpire under the federal fuel administration, stated some time before his death, that in eighteen months only twenty y-seven complaints had been filed with him. This is 3 remarkable record when it is understood that over 25.O0O men are employed in and about the mines in this district
 It is an evidence of the harmonious re- lations existing between operators and employees. It explains the absence of labor troubles.
 Under these conditions 1t is easily un- derstood why the coal mines in this dis trict continued operating at almost a nor mai rate during the strike in the bitum- inous coal fields of other districts last No ' vember.
 The fact that local mills were not af- fected by the steel workers strike last September is explained in the same way. The employees have received considerate treatment from. their employers. They were satisfied, in the main, with condi- tions and they had no cause for joining in the effort to tie up the industries of the country.
 While the relations between employers and employees at the coal mines of the district have been pleasant in the past, the fact that the opera tors themselves have suggested machinery for the prompt and satisfactory settlement of any dis putes that may arise in the future carries with it conviction of the serious intention of the opera tors to deal fairly and honestly with their enl-