Montana labor news., 1939-08-24
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Continued from Page D

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wages were reduced by one days
pay a week. Several conferences
were held with the Company for
the purpose of adjusting wages up
ward to make up for the days pay
that had been lost. AS they were
permitted to do under the law, the
Company offered six days work a
week with overtime pay for hours
worked in excess of A a week. But,
that would have meant that some
600 men would have been thrown
out of work and the Miners Union
rejected the proposal. They pre-
ferred to sacrifice the one days pay
a week rather than see that many
men lose their jobs, with the hard
ship and suffering that would nat
urally follow. However, the cut in
weekly wages has been severely felt
by the individual worker.
Because of this fact and because
certain conditions in the mines have
been gradually getting worse, the
miners, together with the other
unions employed by the Company,
requested adjustments in the wages
and working conditions.
The basic demand from all unions
was for a 20 per cent increase in
wages. In addition, the miners ask
for an 8 hour day, collar collar,
and for recognition of permanent
mine committees at the operating
mines. The other unions, including
those from Great Falls and Ana
conda, request certain changes in
their agreements which I will not
explain in detail but which we can
assure you are not unreasonable.
Negotiations have now begun be-
tween the Company and the various
unions, looking toward a settlement
of the demands that l have men
toned. You will understand that
the craft unions negotiate as a group,
with the advice of their national
representatives. Likewise, the four
CLIO locals negotiate as a group but
with this difference. We do our
own negotiating without the advice
of people who never have a callous,
except what they acquire from sit
ting in a chair. We have no bureau
crazy in our organization.
The matter of a wage increase is
of paramount Importance not only
to the miners but to the entire COM
munity, as well as Great Falls and
Anaconda. Remember that the basic
wage in those towns is so cents a
day less than in Butte. No one, not
even the Company officials them
selves, will deny that the present
weekly wage is too low to maintain
anything like a decent standard of
living, It does not alter the prob
lem to point out that contract miners,
on the average, carr more than
days pay. The basic weekly wage
of $26 for underground and $3.50
for surface workers is the wage that
must be considered in relation to
living standards. 1t is not a ques-
ton of the justice of a wage increase
but rather it is a question of whether
the Company can pay an increase
and still make profits. We take a
realistic view of the problem. We
realize that the mining of copper is
a competitive industry, although to
be sure, the competition between the
three principal producers is a diff
ferent thing than the competition
between retail grocers or doctors or
farmers or unemployed miners. The
trend is toward monopoly control,
We further realize that we still live
under a capitalist system, even
though the system is cracking up
under our very feet. Under this
system, the capitalist, rightly or
wrongly, is entitled to a profit, but
the worker who creates that profit
is entitled to an adequate wage.
We do not wish to bore you with
statistics, and it would be useless
to mention the enormous wealth
that has come out of the Butte mines
in past years. That wealth is gone.
We are dealing with conditions as
they exist here and now. 1t has
long been a familiar argument of the
Anaconda Company that the Butte
mines barely pay their way and that
profits from foreign holdings must
be used to substitute the Montana
operations. Among the people this
argument no longer holds water, 1t
simply does not square with the
facts.
The federal government has
learned in recent years that corpora
ton bookkeeping is a strange and
wonderful thing. The fact is that
the Company is in the strongest
competitive position of any Ameri-
can copper producer.
MI. = ...aA 800. 1911 ~-..