If strife is to cease, a scheme that incorporates three factions in the struggle must be adopted. These three are the operators, nonunion miners, and strikers. The operators now recognize only the first two; the strikers refuse to deal with the second. The United Mine workers makes its boast that when a contract is signed with it by a mine, anyone, whether union man or independent, can get work; yet it at once becomes a grievance, and the miner is forced to quit if he don't join the union.
Hence, each is fighting for the closed shop—the union to close it to the independents and the operators to close it to the unions. It is said on good authority that the unions do not thrive without the check-off system, in which the mine collects the union dues from the wage of the workers. Hence recognition of the union involves this plan.
One big hitch in the whole series of difficulties in the coal-mining districts is that the union is not incorporated. While it demands a contract with its organization, the individual members alone of which can be sued, its members are practically judgment proof, and hence the claim of the operators that a contract with the union gives no protection to them.
The union demands are—
- Recognition of the union.
- Ten per cent advance in wages on tonnage rates and day wage scale.
- Eight-hour day for all classes of labor in or around coal mines and at coke ovens.
- Pay for all narrow work and dead work, which includes brushing, timbering, removing falls, handling impurities, etc.
- Checkweighmen at all mines, to be elected by the miners without interference by company officials in said election.
- The right to trade in any store they please, and the right to choose their own boarding place and doctor.
- Enforcement of Colorado mining laws and abolition of guards.
Of these demands the third, fifth, sixth, and the first half of the seventh are already given by law, but the right to guards on their own property is likewise given by law to the operators. Every fair man agrees that the second and fourth can easily be made the subject of arbitration, and the analysis discloses the issue again to be recognition of the union.
Several of the union's demands, of course, are put in for the purpose of trading and are not seriously pressed as grievances. But what these are the union officials will not yet state.
The writer suggested a permanent commission selected by the participants as the solution of the contest. The union leader to whom it was referred stated that there was merit in the scheme, but objected to recognition of the "scabs." The operators, with whom the plan was taken up, objected to the unions and resultant trouble with agitators. Nevertheless, I believe that a plan along the following lines can be worked out and a solution achieved through it. At any rate the situation has grown to such importance nationally that a permanent, neutral board between the two factions must result.
The scheme as proposed to the two factions is as follows:
Outline of a possible scheme of strike settlement.—Two classes are the sufferers in this controversy. In the first are the operators, the union strikers, and the nonunion workers. The second is the public.
No one wins all he strives for. The scheme suggested here is a compromise which offers promise of immediate settlement and possibly a permanent peace in the coal-mining industry of Colorado.
Coal mining has become a quasi public utility. The numerous difficulties between capital and labor require a neutral board to act between both for the interests of all. A State board is political; one selected by the parties directly interested can be nonpartisan, permanent, and effective.
Permanent board.—An impartial board of six members to be selected to act as a third party between the two factions. Three of these members should be composed of persons not directly or indirectly interested in either the coal companies or the unions, these to be selected in such manner as the operators and the unions should agree upon. The other three members to be optional with the interested parties and to have no voting power, being simply advisory, and representing operators, unions, and nonunion men.
This board to be maintained by an equal assessment placed on both sides. There are some 14,000 coal miners in the State. An assessment of $1 a month on each worker and the same amount per worker on the employer should give an ample sum for all purposes set forth herein. This board shall—
