The Alaska daily empire., 1920-12-16
Miners to Resist Wage Cuts Bitter Struggle Is Feared
Reductions of Dollar Day. Announced by PhelpsDodge Corporation and Other Large Companies Operating In Arizona, Idaho, Utah and Elsewhere, Will
 Not Be Countenanced, Workers Assert.

NEW YORK, Dec. 16-Likelihood of the United Mine Workers of Am
 erica locking horns with the mine
 operators throughout the country in
 bitter struggle to maintain exist | ing wage scales was strengthened
 today when the Phelps-Dodge Corpo
 ration announced wage reductions of
 dollar a day for the higher paid
 workers in it's Arizona copper prop critics, with proportionate decreases
 for Mexican miners. More than l 60,000 men are affected.
 Other companies operating in the
 Globe-Miami and Jerome districts Of
 Arizona have announced similar re- auctions while mines in the Occur D'Alene districts of Northern Idaho are preparing to put reduced scale into effect January 1 Silver and lead mine owners in the Park City, Bingham, Eureka and Salt Lake City camps of Utah, plan a reduction of seventy-five cents a day.
 l Following a conference between company and union representatives 1 in the Anaconda, Great Falls ard 1 Butte districts of Montana, announce ment was made this afternoon that reductions of fifty cents to a dolalr a day would be made in the wages of miners, millmen and smeltermeG. Nearly 10000 workers are affected In the current issue of the United al i- made that the United Mine Workers will not stand for any reduction i'll wages. In the article, John L. Lewis, i international president of the miners union, is quoted as follows:
 Will Fight Reductions
 Under no circumstances will we permit any reduction of the wages of the mine workers of the country. There is not going to be any return to pre-war conditions. Any reduction l in wages is an economic mistake. It never produces any good result. What the mine workers have today, we are going to hold. and we propose to continue to make progress instead of going backward"
 The Journal says in part. "It is absolutely essential. that the union have definite and substantial policy and that the membership shall stand 1 behind that policy in solid phal2nx. And the most essential element in that policy for the next two years ho hon bo 6a l.
 ward step, The coal miners must not lose any of the things that they have won through sacrafice and struggle It is well known that there is in this country today a well de. fined. highly financed and ably con ducted movement on the part of em- 1 ployers opposed to trade unionism i to break down the unions and reduce the workers to the open-shop. low wage system. This is one of the
 greatest dangers that now confront
 the labor movement.
 mineH Policy Defined
 ! "The policy of the United Mine i Workers of America on that subject l has been made clear and plain to the
 world by President John l.. Lewis. He has said that there shall be no re- duction in the wages of the coal min CTS of America.
 "There is the policy of the United Mine Workers. In making that state ment, President Lewis told the world
 what the United Mine Workers of
 America stand for. It is the unquali- fled duty of every member of the
 union to stand firmly behind the in , ternational officials. To stand back, to hesitate or to fail to give the in ternational officials full support and cooperation would be an indication of division.
 1 Eugene Grace, President of the | Bethlehem Steel Company. testified
 yesterday before the joint legislative
 committee Investigating New Works
 alleged building trust declared it i is not the policy of his company to
 an1 fa hricatad SfepI untncs if is n