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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE. KANSAS
JUNE 4.1947
PAGE SIX
Kansan Comments Bloody Coal
The recent failure of union and operator negotiations in the coal industry may result in what we have experienced before—a nation-wide shut-down. Just what might be the result of a strike in July, when the government will return the mines to private ownership direction, is hard to say. Unlike previous times, the pressure of public demand for home fuel will be lacking.
The major obstacles to present settlement are wage and royalty questions. The miner who receives $11.85 for a nine-hour day underground would take home $13.05 according to John L. Lewis's demands. Since this would involve only eight hours work, the mine operators' counter-offer would decrease the amount to $11.35.
The testimony which Mr. Lewis offered before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Miners' Welfare, of the Committee on Education and Labor, and before the Senate subcommittee on the Centralia mine explosion in April, sheds a new light on some of the miners' other demands.
Unless the miners can carry on industry-wide bargaining they can gain nothing, since the field is competitive. Labor is the major cost of coal production, and the operator is forced to sell on a cut-throat market. Those humane persons who voluntarily spend more on their laborers will go broke, Mr. Lewis says.
The miners increased their seven-hour day, five-day week to nine hours, six days, to help the war effort. Now they want to return to the pre-war schedule.
The coal we burn cost 1,079 lives and 59,350 injuries in 1945 alone. During the five years from 1942 through 1946 there were 322,637 accidents, 6,229 of which were fatal. These are not just statistics, but individuals from whom the following letter excerpt is typical:
"... I am blind, one hand off, and can't straighten up out of my chair, I had to have a lawsuit for what little compensation I got. After I paid my lawyer and doctor bills I was figured down to each one in my family draws $2.50 a week. If I can't get some help I will have to raise four children that can't write their name, for I cannot send them to school on that."
He cited resolutions regarding living quarters which the operators had voted down on previous negotiations, including properly-built privies distant from the occupied domiciles, a wash house at the mine entrance, and installation of plumbing systems in company houses.
Mr. Lewis points out that the federal government employs 3,000
3-day Cleaning Service
home economics travelling demonstrators and 171 mine inspectors; that states with about 50,000 miners spent about six times as much for game wardens as for mine inspectors.
4-day Laundry Service
24-hour Shoe Repair
- Leather and Garment Dyeing a Specialty.
He shows that the contract he and Administrator J. A. Krug signed before President Truman contained the clause, "The Coal Mines Administrator will put forth this (safety) code into effect at the mines." He quotes the operator of the Centralia mine as having said that the suggested safety measures would "cost too much money." He notes that Mr. Krug closed 518 mines as unsafe on the day of Lewis's testimony, from two to six months after they had been reported unsafe by the inspector.
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If you want coal in the future, better give the miners a break, warns Lewis, because all who can are getting out of the industry. The average age, he says, is 51 years.
But which is greater, you may ask, the safety of the life of the nation, or the individuals who have a right to strike? Mr. Lewis also has a question: "Whose duty is it to go into a coal mine and die? Which citizen?"
Alamada Bollier
Graduate To Teach
Dr. Norman Preble, a graduate of the University in 1936, has recently been appointed to the faculty of Union college, Schenectady, N. Y. He will serve as assistant professor of biology.
The Eagle Replies .
In this column yesterday a student used many words to point out that I wasn't aware that America has poor people. However, my article states that we don't have a perfect economy, that we have economic problems. I am sorry he spent time accusing me of not realizing a point which, in reality, I stressed, and that he ignored the argument of the article.
The Eagle will continue its policy of avoiding this column to present its beliefs. We will defend ourselves against false statements, however. We hope, sincerely, that others will quit using the column to twist our statements and show that they don't even read our paper very carefully. If some must get their names in the paper, please attack our arguments instead of trying to put words in our mouths on a minor point. We like honest criticism; we dislike being told we avoid things which we stress.
Bill Tincher College Freshman
The University Daily Kansan
Student Newspaper of the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Member of the Kansas Press Assn. National Editorial Assn. Inland Daily Press Association. Public Affairs, Big Apple Press. Represented by the National vertising Service at Madison Ave. New York City.
Editor in Chief ... LeMoyne Frederick
Managing Editor ... Marcela Stewart
Business Manager. John D. McCormick
Advertising Manager ... Calvin Arnold
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