Miners' Wages and the Cost of Anthracite

Report Outline
The Labor Struggle in Anthracite
Present Wages of Anthracite Workers
Cost of Living in Anthracite Fields
Costs, Margins and Mine Prices
The Price of Anthracite to Consumers
Special Focus

The threat of a general strike in the anthracite and bituminous coal fields, if carried out by the United Mine Workers of America upon the expiration of the anthracite wage agreement August 31, will confront the country with the most difficult industrial problem it has had to face since the anthracite-bituminous-railroad shop strike in the summer of 1922.

In the compact anthracite industry, with the owners and Workers well organized, the concern of the public and the government relates primarily to prices of domestic fuel and the curtailment of supplies that would be brought about by a suspension of production. In the more extensive bituminous industry—supplying a commodity of far greater economic importance than anthracite—the immediate effect upon prices and supplies is but one phase of a larger problem that would be forced to public attention by a suspension of operations in the union fields.

The United States Coal Commission in its anthracite report and the President in his first annual message to Congress recommended that special powers for dealing with future suspensions, or threatened suspensions, in the coal industry be conferred upon the Chief Executive. Congress failed to act upon either of these recommendations, leaving the President without specific authority for effective intervention in the present situation. The concern heretofore shown by the President over the threatened anthracite strike appears recently to have been somewhat allayed, although there has been no outward change in the situation, and reports from Atlantic City state that little progress has been made in the negotiations for a new wage agreement.