The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1923-09-07

NEWS SERVICE
By LELAND OLDS
Federated Press Industrial Editor
ANTHRACITE NOTES

AIN L dRAOIlE NO1IO
Why have the union representatives
refused arbitration of their demands
on the anthracite operators
Every miner knows that he was
dOublecrOssed by the public represent
ative who was chairman of the 1920
arbitration board. The subservience
Of this hanger-on of the capitalist
system has cost anthracite workers at
least S30,000,0O0 in wages which were
rightfully theirs.
Recent antics of the Railway Labor
Board have confirmed this deep seated
determination not to accept arbltra-
ton. Only year ago this board de-
creed that living wage must wait un-
til the railroads were satisfied with
profits land proceeded to lead the Wall
Street attempt to substitute company
unions for the independent shOpcraft
unions on the railroads.
Three years ago the anthracite coal
commission began by ruling out eXhib-
its that touched the anthracite mon
OpOly in the sensitive spot of profits.
Thus the miners case was stripped of
its most important proof Of the abil
ity of the industry to pay the increases
without increasing the price Of coal
to the consumer.
The chairman centered proceedings
on the question Of changes in the cost
of living and then repudiated the re-
concentrations of his own economist
that the cost Of living justified 27
per cent increase and handed the min
ers the scant II per cent which had
been offered by the operators and by
the secretary of labor prior to sub
mission Of the dispute to arbitration.
This last arbitration performance in
the industry was striking illustra-
ton of the subservience of sO-called
impartial chairmen to the financial
overlords who can make or break the
snug career of reasonable success and
comfort dreamed of by the American
middle class. This impartial" chair
man had agreed to accept the findings
of an economist engaged to collect
data on the cost of living. When the
findings turned out to favor 27 per
cent increase the operators commits
siOner objected and the economist was
fired. Over a weekend the chairman
reached the II per cent verdict.
According to Rauschenbush in his
book, The Anthracite Question, Sle
miners are puzzled to know just how
this chairman happened to hit upon
the II per cent and what mysterious
influences worked upon "the mind of
the representative of the public to
make him act in the peculiar way he
did"
1t is first hand knowledge that such
mysterious influences do work on the
minds of representatives Of the public
that underlies the solid opposition of
the miners to arbitration.
More than 30 items for which an
thracite operators check off payment
from miners earnings were listed in
a communication to the U. S. coal
commission in which the United Mine
Workers agreed to abandon its de-
mand for a check-off provision in the
next contract providing that the oD-
orators agreed 20 abandon their age
long practice Of checking off from
their employees payment for the long
list of items noted.
Among the items for which the OPP
orators have applied the check-off are
house rent, insurance premiums, coal,
taxes, hospital and medical charges,
explosive supplies, pay of check
Weighmen, wages 10 labOrers, liberty
bonds, red cross contributions, cOntri-
buttons to war chests, etc. The min
ers' statement says that the operators
seemingly arrOgate to themselves the
exclusive right to be the beneficiary
OF the practice" in spite of their de-
nunciatiOn Of the suggestion that the
nine workers participate as unfair, IL
legal and un-Amercan.
The union called the attention of the
U. 5. coal commission to the fact that
secret agents of the operators are in
the field attempting to create stu
alton where strike in the anthracite
tlelds would be unavoidable. Accord
ing to the protest filed with the COM
mission, anthracite communities "are
infested with a horde of private de-
tectlves and secret agents obviously
employed by some Of the anthracite
producing companies and by the btu
mlnous coal operators in the non-union
flelds. Many of these are men of low
mentality and equally low moral
standards and come from that near
criminal type Of private detectives de-
scrlbed by William J. Burns, head Of
the U. s. Secret Service as being the
most scrupulous scoundrels in the
world
In discussing these charges Lewis
asserted that some of these detectives
were in the pay Of the Lehigh Coal Co.
OF which Warmer, spokesman of the
operators is president. He said that
statements about the miners revolving
against the check-off came entirely
from these detectives. "NOt a single
one CT the 400 anthracite locals" he
said "have taken a position opposite
to that of the officers of the union.
Scores have adopted resolutions in
foVyO,. of -