The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-04-20
ALL SOFT COAL
 MINES TO CLOSE
(Continued from Page D

President Harding intervened to end 8 deadlock in union negotiations that persisted from April to Sep- tember 16.
 Lewis made no comment on the order although he had said yester- day afternoon that If driven to it W. can order the shutdown of every scft-coal mine in the country be- tween now and dark, subject, of course, to 15-day notification" Announcements of the order were made by Ray Edmundson, president of the Illinois district of the union at Springfield, H.; John Ross, pres ident of District 9, at Rock Springs Wyo.: Louis 3oldrini, Iowa district president, at Albia, Ia., and Charles Funcannon, president of the In- diana district, at Terre Haute. All said that the order applied to all districts including Indiana, Colo rado, Illinois, Iowa, Wyoming, Mon- tana, Washington, Missouri, Okla homa Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Alabama and Kentucky. Alabama miners were idled April 1, along with Appalachian miners.
 Railroads Suffer
 Railroads were first to suffer from the coal shortage. The Baltimore and Ohio reported 1t had fuel for only six or seven days operations: New York CentraI announced its shops at Celeveland had been closed to conserve fuel; Pennsylvania Rail- road reported supply for two or three weeks.
 Mayor F. H. LaGuardia of New York and several members of Con- gress have appealed to President Roosevelt to intervene but the only federal action so far was taken Tuesday night by Secretary of La- bor Frances Perkins, who sent John R. Steelman, head of the depart ment's division of conciliation, here from Washington to confer with the negotiators.
 Steelman said yesterday that the negotiators were mot so far apart as they think they are," but both Lewis and Charles O'Neill. spokes- man for the operators, made it plain that they were adamant on the is- sue of penalty clauses.
 No Great Chasm
 Superficially, the miners and oper- ators are not divided by any great chasm. They have agreed in princi- pie on 8 two-year renewal of the old contract, under which miners worked 35 hours a week for daily basic wage of $6 in the north and $5.60 in the south.
 Actually, however, they appeared to be poles apart on a union recog- hilton provision without which no new agreement can be reached. The miners demand elimination of strike penalty clauses which heretofore have been incorporated in local con- tracts modelled upon the Appala- chian agreement.
 The UMWA has insisted 1t must retain the strike weapon to defend itself against threatened encroach- ment by craft unions of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor and against "subversive interests" hoping to "de- stroy the union."
 Lewis Issues Charge
 Lewis has charged that independ- ent steel companies and other "la- bor-hating" industrialists are using the coal operators as a "catspaw" in an atetmpt to kill collective bar gaining.
 The operators contend elimina- ton of the strike penalty clauses would be tantamount to the closed shop and that the latter would constitute an infringement upon the rights of management. As a "com- promise" proposal, they offered the UMWA exclusive bargaining, rights under the Wagner Act.
 The miners rejected the offer on the grounds that 1t proposed an 'open shop" provision under which, with the penalty clauses retained. ihe union would De lat the mercy of It's enemies"
 steelman found the miners and operators apparently unwilling to judge an inch. He conferred with hem for nearly two hours and Q lale after having canvassed the situ- |fion with James r. Dewey, labor apartment conciliator who has been n the scene for more than three 'ccks.