Evening star., 1946-03-16
Coal Miners Make
Notable Advances
But in 1888 Soft Coal Wage Was
Only SI4.47 a Week
By Berfram Benedict


AS the General Motors and General
Electric strikes came to an end, with
high hopes held for a speedy settlement
of the Westinghouse Electric strike, the
industrial outlook was reclouded by the
threat of a coal strike on or after
April l. A coal stoppage would seri-
ously retard the postwar industrial ex-
pansion, especially by the consequent
reduction in steel production. Negotia-
tions between the coal operators and
the United Mine Workers-that is. John
Llewellyn Lewis - are being held in
Washington.
No group of workers has had greater
advances in wage rates over the last
dozen years than the coal miners. The
point is that at the inception of the
New Deal they were about as badly Of
as any other labor group of which con-
siderable skill and hard work are re-
quired.
BY 1888 the United Mine Workers had
become weak. 1t had only about 125, 900
members out Of the more than 600, 1000
miners in the industry, and most OF
these $4,000 were in anthracite. The
low estate of the union was result OF
the loss OF the great coal strike in 1927,
Yet the United Mine Workers had
been one of the earliest unions to attain
strength in the United States. The
National Federation of Miners and Mine
Laborers was organized in 1885. In 1890
it united with District Assembly 1876 of
the Knights of Labor to form the
United Mine Workers of America. The
union membership in those early days
was never large, but when the union
did call strike substantial number
of all miners responded.
After World War I the high price Of
coal stimulated the development of new
mines In the South, and the union had
little success in organizing the Southern
miners. Regional differences In wages
enabled the Southern operators to win
larger and larger share of the market
one reason why the Northern OPERA
tors refused to renew their contract
with the union in 1927. When Lewis
then called strike the nonunion mines
were able to supply more than one-half
of the Nations coal needs, and in 1929
Lewis had to tell his local leaders to
take the best terms they could get,
In 1888 the average weekly wage In
bituminous mining was only s1447-5o
cents an hour for an average week of
29l2 hours. The anthracite miner aver
aged s25.75-S2 cents an hour and an
average work week of 31la hours.
But Section (a) of the NRA Act of
April rs, 1888, guaranteed the right of
collective bargaining Thereupon Lewis
organizers went to town, and now prac-
tlcally the entire industry is unionized.
The NRA was invalidated by a unani-
nous decision of the Supreme Court
on May 27, 1885; its central features
were applied to the bituminous coal
industry by the Guffey-Snyder Act of
August, 1885, This in turn was ruled un-
constitutional on May 18, 1886; 1t was
replaced by the Bituminous Coal (Guf-
fey) Act of 1887.
The new act, like its predecessor. al
lowed the fixing of minimum and maxi
mum prices; in actuality, only minimum
prices were set. This act expired in
October, 1943 Lewis was for its extern
sion in somewhat different form. To-
day coal prices are controlled by OPA.
The remarkable advance in bitumi-
nous miners earnings over the last
dozen years has been as follows: