coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
in Ohio and other states which sell their coal in
the same markets.
"The companies operating under these leases
are also doing, in some cases at least, everything
in their power to prevent accidents to the miners
and other employes engaged Vn the mines. Nowhere
has this Commission seen such elaborate
and complete precautions taken to prevent accidents
as are to be found in the mines operated
under these leases by the United States Steel Corporation
at Gary, West Virginia. At all of the
mines of this company, the rule that "safety is
the first consideration" is constantly forced upon
the attention of all employes of the company and
everything which the company can do to prevent
accidents is being done. We shall have occasion
elsewhere in this Report to call attention to some
of the things being done by the United States
Steel Corporation to prevent accidents, and which
might well be adopted in Ohio.
"Our present purpose in calling attention to the
conditions under which this company and other
companies are operating mines is to show that
conservation of coal can be secured in Ohio by
means of strict supervision of mining operations
and that there is no difference, so far as its effect
upon the cost of production is concerned, between
supervision by a private company, leasing its
mining properties, and that which could be imposed
by a State Government interested in preserving
its natural resources as well as the health
and safety of the laborers working in its mines."
In Part 11 the Commission discusses the increase
in the number of accidents, need of safety
foremen, efficiency tests for miners, and solid
shooting. In Part III the screened coal vs. mine
run system of payment is treated of which a hissory
of the controversy, unusual character of the
miners' demands, the miners' objection to the
present system, the operators' objection to the
mine run system and then announces these con
elusions and recommendations:
"To what conclusions now has the Commission
arrived as a result of its attempt to balance these
arguments for and against a change in the present
SYSTEM 01*' WEIGHING COAL
and paying for the labor employed in mining and
loading it?
"1. It is the belief of the Commission that the
present mode of payment by which the miners
and loaders are paid on the basis of only a part
of their saleable product is not an equitable one.
We express no opinion as to the proper rate or
amount of the wages of miners, but we consider
that the method of measuring the amount of their
payment is wrong. Doubtless the principle was
correct at the time of its adoption, for at that
time only that part of the coal which passed over
the screen was sold. Today it is all sold, and
although, when the wage scale Is fixed, this is
taken into account, the assumption on which the
rate of pay is fixed, viz. that a certain fixed percentage
of the coal passes through the screen,
is an assumption which does not correspond to
the facts. For that reason the present system is
responsible for inequalities in the pay given to
miners for the same amount of work in different
districts and in different mines in the same district
and, to a slight extent, in different rooms
in the same mine.
•Such a system is bound to cause discontent,
especially when coupled with the fact that many
miners actually believe that they are not being
paid for any of the coal which passes through
the screen. The contracts, it is true, make allowance
for the fine coal, but only a very few of the
men employed in the mines have anything directly
to do with the making of such contracts. Many
of the miners are new arrivals in this country and
know nothing of the reasons which led to the
making of a contract to pay for coal on a screenedceal
basis. They only know that their pay is
measured by the amount of coal which passes
over the screen and yet they see carload after
carload of fine coal being sold which has been
produced by their labor and for which they imagine
they have received no pay whatever. In
order to remove these inequalities and to allay
discontent, we feel that the present method of
basing the miners' and loaders' pay on the amount
of screened-coal which they have produced should
be abandoned.
"2. When we turn to a consideration of the
mine-rune system of measuring the amount of
payment, which is the system employed in many
states and which is the system the miners desire
to have adopted by law in Ohio, we encounter
the operators' objections to such a system, based
on the notion that there would be a great increase
in the amount of impurities and fine coal sent
out of the mine under such a system.
"We are inclined to give full weight to their
objections insofar as they relate to a probable
increase in the amount of impurities. The experience
of other states, especially that of Illinois
and Arkansas, shows these
OBJECTIONS TO HE REAL.
If the mine-run system of payment is to be adopted
by law, it should apply only to clean coal, i. e.,
eoal cleaned in such a way that the operator is
able to market it.
"We are also convinced that there would be a
great increase in the amount of fine coal in colidshooting
mines, if the mine-run system were
adopted, and for this reason and because it would
reduce the number of accidents, we recommend
that solid shooting be prohibited by law, except