Belt Valley times. [volume] (Armington, Mont.) 1894-1977, 1922-03-30
Mines Will Close Down Tomorrow
Night for Duration Of the Strike

With the strike order of the Unites
Mine Workers of America scheduled
to be put into effect Saturday morn
ing, to enforce a demand for a six
hour day and a five-day week at ths
same pay per hour as now prevails
local operators are preparing TO close
down their mines tomorrow night, and
at a mapority of the mines Saturday
morning will see no activity at al
while at others some little work that
does not have TO do with the produc-
ton of coal will be carried on, az least
for time.
At the mine of the G. W. Merkle
Coal company, the big one of the To-
cal field and employing about $50
men, all union men will leave the
works tomorrow night with their
tools after cleaning up the days pro-
Iduction, and a big iron gate viii be
swung Saturday and the entrance to
the works permanently closed for the
duration of the strike Mine Foreman
r. E. Davis and Outside Foreman Bert
Funk viii man the pumps and the
works will be kept free from water.
but that will be the extent of the oper-
ations there.
And the same is practically true of
all the other mines employing union
miners in the district The JAS
Brodie & Son mine have some devel-
opment work to be done, opening new
entries, tearing up and relaying track,
but there will be no attempt at zeal
production, says the management.
The same course will be followed at
the Millard mine and at the Calone
Il Johnson mine.
The Highwood Coal Mines also has
considerable development work to
complete and this will keep small
force busy practically all summer
The new tipple and bins were only
temporarily completed week or 10l
days ago to allow of the production |
of coal for a short time before the |
strike order went into effect. This
will be permanently completed and
other work about the mine carried on
and a road for the haulage of coal
from the works to the county road
will be graded However, there will
be no production of coal.
For the past week this company has
been loading a car a day over the new
loading chute on the Great Northern
rlght-ofway. However, it has been
to shovel the coal as the
motor for the electric dump has not
been connected. All other mines have
also been working to capacity supply
ing the local, commercial and railroad
demand, all of them trying to store
a supply that would run them for a
time at least, according to their needs.
1t is said that the Highwood and Ca
lone and Johnson mines have been
loading for the Great Northern, in ad-
dition TO the output of the Merkle
mine. These cars are simply being
loaded and placed in different yards to
stand until wanted, and it was expect
ed that all cars would be filled cou-
pie of days before the Inauguration Of ;
he strike, thus giving belated COM
mercial orders chance to be filled.
All the local mines hope to be able
70 go into the strike with full bins
and chutes, but it is not expected that
his supply will last long. However,
here is little chance Of any great in
locally as to getting coal
'or the smaller mines employing no
lnion men and catering practically
,ntirely to local trade will continue to 4
operate.
With the decision of the operators