The Bituminous Coal Problem

Report Outline
Over Expansion of Bituminous Industry
Over Manning of the Bituminous Industry
Causes of Irregular Operation
Position of the Union in the Industry
Effects of Jacksonville Agreement
Special Focus

The present strategy of the United Mine Workers in the anthracite controversy forecasts an attempt to employ the union's strength in the well organized anthracite fields to halt wage reductions and enforce the Jacksonville agreement without a strike in the “bituminous fields. This policy can be made effective only by carrying out the strike threat in the anthracite fields September 1 and creating a situation wherein the federal government will be compelled, to take a hand in the bituminous dispute as the price of an anthracite settlement.

The union has already called upon the government for assistance in enforcing its wage contract with the bituminous operators, on the ground that the government in effect became a party to the Jacksonville agreement by giving aid in its negotiation and approving the theory upon which it was based. In the event of failure to obtain such assistance by other means, officials of the United Mine Workers have threatened a bituminous strike to compel discussion “by the government, the coal operator and the union” of “whether the Jacksonville agreement is to be carried out.”

Tactics Open to the United Mine Workers

After a strike had been called in the anthracite fields the ordering of a strike in the bituminous fields—without fixing a definite date—would be a logical first move in the execution of the United Mine Workers' program. The use of bituminous coal as a substitute for anthracite, with the encouragement of the government, in the presence of an anthracite strike, might provide such justification as the miners would require for refusing to settle the first dispute before the second had been adjusted to their satisfaction.