Claims Miners Are Cheated

CLAIMS MINERS ARE CHEATED

Not Paid for the Amount of Coal Mined

A REASONABLE DEMAND

Men Ask That One of Their Number be Present When Coal is Weighed

"One of the demands of the striking miners," says Walter Welman in the Chicago Record-Herald, "is that the coal they dig shal be weighed -- be actually weighed with one of their men present as a checker. There is nothing impracticable, nothing unreasonable, about this. Coal is run out of the mines in little cars, and the weighing of cars is a simple process.

"Under the present system the miner is required to load his car, not only level full, but he must heap it up at least six inches. That is called 'topping.' The 'topping' is not judged where the car is loaded, in the mine, but at the breaker, which may be two or three miles away. All the jolting the car gets on its rough journey to the breaker counts against the miner. If upon arrival there the 'topping' is not fully six inches the miner is docked. It is a company man who does the judging.

"Knowing by experience that he is likely to get the worst of the docking, to make sure the miner heaps it up nine or ten inches. He gets no credit for this surplus. He may escape docking, but he does a great deal more labor than he is paid for. And he would not be human if he failed to feel the injustice of the thing.

"Then there is the petty boss who does the judging. He likes to stand in with the company, as he is paid good wages for an easy job. If he says to a miner, 'Your cars are coming out poorly,' the miner knows what that means. He is in danger of being docked or discharged. So, to be on the safe side, he heaps up the car.

"When this now antiquated system was put in operation the pea, buckwheat and bird's-eye sizes of coal were not sold. The system was founded upon the idea that a miner had to take out from 2,400 to 2,000 pounds in order to yield the company 2,000 pounds of marketable coal. Finally it was put up to 2,650 pounds, and if the miners turned out coal which yielded more than the proportionate number of tons at 2,000 pounds they were allowed the difference, called the bonus.

PAID NO BONUS.

"Pretty soon the operators stopped paying the bonus, and they have never resumed it.

"Years ago the companies found they could sell all the small sizes which hitherto had gone to the culm bank. But they did not revise their system on this account. They did not pay the miners for taking out this small coal. Instead of scaling down the number of pounds he must dig in order to produce a ton of marketable coal, they actually increased it. They pushed it up to 2,850 pounds, and figured each hundredweight at 112 pounds! The result is that every miner is expected to take out 3,292 pounds of coal to make one ton of 2,000 pounds for the company. The men are willing to take out 2,240 pounds to the ton, for good measure, but they think 3,292 pounds a little too much.

"The car, too, is an uncertain quantity. In some colleries it is larger (than in others. There is no agreement as to what the size of the car shall be. It is a "car," and that is all. These cars have a way of growing. Reports from a large number of collieries show that the car has been gradually increasing in size during the last few years, without notification to the men.

"During the conference between the representatives of the men and the railway presidents in New York the injustice of this clumsy method of measuring work was fully described. The railway presidents were asked mitted. But they offered no expla- a fair system -- weighing all coal at the breaker. They gave no answer then. A day or two later they replied, "No, the weighing of coal could not be permittedfl' But they offered no explanation. Thus the matter was disposed of.

"It is not surprising that they wish to cling to the old system. By it they get a great deal of work they do not pay for.

The operators claim they pay for labor for every ton of coal put on their cars about $1.15. Last year they marketed 50,000,000 tons of coal. At this rate they should have paid their labor $57,000,000. Statistics which seem trustworthy -- they were compiled by state of Pennsylvania officials -- show that the amount paid labor in the coal fields was only $40,000,000.

"There is a discrepancy here.. Probably it occurs in the method of figuring. If the operators pay, on all labor account, $1.15 per ton, that is on the ton received from the minor. But when they come to sell this ton in the market it is nearly a ton and a half. Certain it is that under the present system the companies are able to sell to the public a great deal more coal than they pay the miners for taking out of the earth."