New-York tribune., 1922-02-14

strike Of 1902, which was settled through
the Intervention Of President Roosevelt
and the subsequent granting Of an
award favorable to the strikcrs-thn
hard Goa! operators and miners have
met and successfully negotiated new
agreements. hey Will at least meet
this year, soon after the close of this
convention, although they now appear
to be in n hard and fast deadlock, with
the miners demanding an increase and
the operators insisting that there be a
decrease.
A different situation is presented BY
the bituminous fields. There the
miners are organized on ratio of
about so to 20 per cent, again accord
ing to union figures, which give the
total number of soft coal workers as
$4,000. This is disputed by the
operators, who claim apprcciable gains
tor tho open shop, especially in the
New River. Kanawha and Pocahontas S
fields. Although many of the bitum-
nous miners earn $3.50 day. as com
pared to an average wage Of slightly
less than S6 day for the majority of
the anthracite workers, their yearly
earnings arc ,.ss because of Auctua-
tons in the production of soft coal.
The union figures show that whereas
the bituminous miner is able to work
only POS days =. year, when times are
good, the average working period for
the hard coal miner in 1921 was 260
days. Soft coal production covers a
much larger territory than does that
OF anthracite, with Pennsylvania, H.
llnois, West Virginia, Ohio and
Indiana leading a total Of twenty-onc
states concerned.
Disputes More Frequent
Serious Industrial disputes have been
much moro frequent in the bituminous
than in the anthracite field. There
have been several soft coal strikes, the
last of which was in 1919, which was
settled through an award granted by d
Federal commission. On various oc-
casons the bituminous operators have
negotiate new agreements One clause
IN the 1919 award provided that such q
meeting shall be held prior to March
3 of this year. when all United Mine
Workers agreements expire; but
nevertheless, the operators of the cen
tral competitive field, with which pre-
vious agreements have been the basis
for those in the entire industry, al
ready have notified tho miners that
LbtN VIII Tttu uSc 10 meet Win -nciT
representatives for negotiating a new
agreement.
This action, it is charged by the
union officials. was taken despite the
fact that no demands had then been
submitted to the operators; in fact
these demands were only com pleted
hero to-day. The operators acted
solely because they chad heard de
mands for an increase would be made.
the union heads assert, and they go on
to make the further accusation that
"the soft coal operators want to bring
about n strike SO they can further
boost the price Of coal
Cut in Wages Demanded
Presentation Of the actual issues
between The miners and the operators
is much more simple than that Of the
vast array of complex ramiiications
surrounding them. The situation is
that the operators. both anthracite
and btuminous, demand that the min
ors submit to cut in wages, declar-
ING they should DO so because of gene
raj postwar reductions and asserting
that the cost Of coal to the public can
rot be decreased until this is accom-
plished. The anthracite miners arc
equally emphatic that they must have
an increase in wages, saying they can
not live deccntly on what they arc
row receiving. and declaring that the
operators can both raise wages and
cut the cost Of coal to the public and