The daily worker., 1930-04-30
By FRED ELLIS

children. 1t means misery and suffering for
the miners
The hours of actual working time that the
miner puts in have also been increasing.
Whereas formerly miner was able to make
his shift in 1-2 to hours, in many mines
the miner must put in the full hours. Um-
pire German, of the Cancellation Board, has
ruled that it is violation of the agreement
for miner to stay less than the full hours
in the mine. The coal companies do not yet
dare to enforce this ruling everywheres but
after Sept. 1st---if Lewis succeeds in selling
out the miners again--the coal operators will
ruthlessly enforce this decision. This will
mean an increase of to 1-2 hours for every
miner in the anthracite
In the anthracite, the contract system is in
full bloom. This contract system is the curse
of the hard-coal region. 1t means a division
of the workers into contractors and laborers.
1t means greater exploitation of the anthracite
miners, and bigger profits for the companies.
The contractor system means the bribery of a
small section of the miners at the expense of
the great bulk of the men. The operators
use the contracting system in order to enslave
the miners still more, and it must be expected,
that the companies will use this contract sys-
tenn more than ever before at the expiration of
the agreement The coal operators seek to
evade all responsibilities for working-condi
tions, wages, ETC., by the use of the middle man
the contractor-who also gets his share of
the profits created by the toll of the miners.
Bigger mergers of the largest coal COM
panies on the order of the day in the an
thracite, and are taking place more frequently.
In 1928, seven of the large anthracite compa-
nies owned and controlled between rs to 80
per cent of all anthracite mined And some of
th4.1 l.
coal companies are closely interlocked with the
big railroads that run through the anthracite
with the Erie R.R., the D.L. & W. etc. and
with the most powerful financial interests of
Wall St.-Morgan and Rockefeller interests.
These mergers consolidating huge trusts
which represent a great force against the
miners The results of these mergers are: a.
greater exploitation of the miners BY more
wage cuts g speedup d) introduction Of more
efficient machinery into the mines e) larger
number of miners being thrown out of the in
dustry.
The anthracite coal companies are directly
connected up with the government machinery
III the state and city, as well as nationally.
The government apparatus is being used more
frequently against the miners who resist the
onslaught OF the operators Just as was the
case in Illinois, where the companies used the
state militia against the striking miners; so
will the c<al barons in the anthracite use the
state troopers, the national guard, the police,
the courts, injunctions tear gas bombs, and
machine guns against the hard-coal miners.
The operators and their government agents
will always threaten the large number of for
eign born anthracite miners with deportation,
registration, finger printing, in orier to terror
ize the foreign born workers, and in order to
kill their militancy. 1t is the duty of the
miners to prepare now to resist these COVER
ment attacks, to resist the terrorization of
the foreign born miners, to organize all nation
alities of miners; and to establish real unity
and solidarity amongst the hard-coal miners.
What is bringing on these worsenng condi-
tions, these wage cuts, etc? 1t is due to the
fact that the anthracite industry, as part of the
coal mining industry as whole, has been in
serious crisis ever since the ending of the last