Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1920-01-28
INDIANA MINERS
GRIEVANCES UP
Union Head Presents Many
Questions to Commission.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2S.-Indiana coal
miners have presented a number of local
grievances to the bituminous coal COM
mission which is now in session here
to settle and determine all questions in
controversy between coal miners an0
coal operators throughout the country.
Each state has its own questions in
addition to the general problems relat~
ing to increased wages and shorter work
day and other matters that were dealt
with by the international convention of
the United Mine Workers at Cleveland
last September. All of these questions
have been put in the hands of the COM
mission and miners and operators have
agreed to accept their decision.
Ed Stewart, president of the United
Mine Workers of the district of Indiana,
presented the Indiana grievances, some
OF which are of long standing.
The first grievance relates to the wage
scale for mine engineers and fremen.
The contract with the operators, he said,
bases the wage scale for the engineers
and fremen of Indiana based upon the
etght-hour day, but provides in addi-
ton 10 the hosting of coal that they
shall hoist and lower the men and per
form such other duties as usually per-
TAIN TO TIE euSlueGA : WU1hs 4NOiNltu-
standing the fact that when the eight
hour contract was made in Chicago in
1898, Stewart said. the engineers and
bremen worked ten and twelve hours
a day for the pay they should get for
eight hours. Firemen are required to
work twelve hours for less than the day
men on top receive for their eight hours
labor.
WANT PAY FOR
REMOVING SLATE.
Another grievance related to pay for
the removal of slate. Stewart said slate
in the Indiana mines runs from one inch
to t~wenty-four inches in thickness, and
in one mine it is forty-two inches thick.
Miners are required to handle his slate
for nothing, be it said. He contends that
the operators should pay for this work,
which sometimes takes three or four
hours a day.
Stewart said also that the operators re
fused to pay for the removal OF what is
known as bone coal and he asked the
commission to make an award on that
subject.
In Indiana the machine miner receives
u cents a ton less than the pick miner.
Stewart called attention to the fact that
the differential in Illinois is only I cents
and contended that this Indiana diferen-
TIA SNoulu Uc ItduJuStfIs
He also urges that the clause In the
Indiana contract, which provides that
when one company owns more than one
mine on the same line of track and in the
same vein of coal the work should. as
nearly as possible or as nearly as bust
ness conditions permit, be equally di-
vided between the various mines, be
construed to mean that, though one mine
may produce cheaper than another the
work shall be divided equally.
LOWER THE COAL,
LOWER THE PAY.
There is a clause in the Indiana con
tract between miners and operators,
which Stewart designated as ridiculous.
1t relates to what is known as low
coal" He said that when coal reaches
less than four and o half feet in height,
the loader gets . cents per ton less than
where he works in seven feet of coal.
He contends that the pay for low coal
should be higher than for high coal
He said the operators also had re
fused to comply with the Indiana week
ly pay day law. He also asked con
sideration of the Indiana law, which
becomes effective April ]. 1920, requir-
ing the operators to employ and pay
shot frers in the mines. He also asked
that blacksmtthing charges for keeping
tools in condition be assessed at exact
cost. He expressed the belief that the
duty of sharpening tools belonged to the
operator just the same as the erection
of lis tipple.
Drivers in Indiana mines also have
their grievances, Stewart said. The driv-
ers are required to go to the barns and
get their mules and to TAX them back
to the barns after their days labor is
lone without any compensation. Thus,
he said, they are required to work
practically min hours for eight hours
pay.