Bisbee daily review., 1922-08-16
RE-OPEN|NG OF PROPERTIES IN
 SEVEN STATES
 STARTS TODAY
Operators and Miners Sign Agreement Renewing Wage
 Contract of March 3l PLAN TO EXTEND BREAK Illinois Miners Leader Will Ask State Owners to Meet
 Scale Committee Friday

CLEVELAND, O., Aug. 15. - CBy The Associated Press = Immediate resumption of coal production in bit- luminous mines scattered over seven states was ordered tonight and in some places the cutting of coal will be started tomorrow
 Orders for miners to return to work were sent direct by district union officials after operators had signed an agreement renewing the wage contracts that were in force when the men quit the mines last March 31
 The formal break in the strike came at 3:10 D. m. when the scale agreement was adopted by the unan- imous vote of the miners and opera tors at their joint conference.
 The general agreement then was signed by T. K. Maher, of Cleveland. an operator, as chairman of the con- ference and William Green, a miner, as its secretary. Supplemental agree ments between operators and state union officials were then executed with the union chiefs wiring local unions that work might be resumed.
 President John L.. Lewis of the miners said that operators control ling an annual output of approxi- mately 60,0e0,00 tons had signed the agreement.
 Their mines, he said, are in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan. Oklahoma and Washington.
 Plans for extending the break of the strike also were made by the union men. Frank Harrington, the Illinois miners president, announced that he would ask the Illinois opera tors to meet the unions district scale committee at Chicago on Fri day. John Hessler, head of the In- diana miners, also asked the Indiana operators to join in a scale confer ence at Terre Haute on the same day. Van A. Bittner, statistician for the international union, announced that operators in Kansas. Missouri. Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas would be asked to meet with the union men at Kansas City next Tuesday.
 U1der the policy laid down today by the union, operators will be re- quired to accept the interstate agree ment, made at the general confer ence here as the basis for their con- tracts with the union. This agree ment provides for the re-establish- ment of the wage contracts which in- cludes the check off system of union dues that were in force last March 31, wit hthe new contract to run until March 31, 1923. Further, the agreement provides for creation of an advisory fact-finding commis- sion, meeting being called of all soft coal operators for next October to effect the selection of the con- mission.
 Both the miners and the operators held separate meetings to ratify the agreement before joining in the after noon conference where unanimous approval was voted to be followed by the signing of the document.
 "The interstate agreement executed with operators having a production of 60,000.000 tons," MT. Lewis said. twill become the basic agreement for the bituminous industry throughout the country and I anticipate that in a comparatively few days that SUD- plemental contracts with groups of operators and individual operators will be executed with the majority of the operators whose mines are now on strike.
 Mir. Lewis and other union officials will remain here tomorrow to con- clude conferences with operators, but most of the miners officials left to- night for their homes to seek nego- tiations with the operators there. Tn eanthracite conference set for tomorrow was postponed until Thurs day. It will be held at Philadelphia.