OCR Text |
Show The Coal Shortage Transportation difficulties arising from overloading the D. & R. G. W. system, and that retard the quick movement of coal from Carbon County, are reported to be temporary and affect the coal shortage only in an incidental way. The coal shortage in this area is not improving—if anything there is further deterioration. Fairly mild temperatures in the Rocky Mountain region and in the Pacific States is all that has averted serious distress. Urgent pleas to John L. Lewis have been unavailing. No agreement has been reached that will permit the miners to work more than seven hours a day. And no agreement is in sight. Mr. Lewis sits tight. He has authorized a seven-hour, seven-day week as a tem- porary expedient. | But a seven day week is impractical in mechanized mines in this area. On that point a large majority of the miners and the operators are agreed. The opinion is general that a longer work-day is the solution. One day a week is necessary for conditioning equipment and dusting the mines. Informal polls of sentiment among miners in Carbon County indicate that they approve the longer work-day by about 3 to 1, as the best means of meeting the coal shortage. <A public poll under the auspices of the Industrial Commission should be made. The coal miners of Utah should have an opportunity to express their views on the length of the work-day during the war emergency. And the public is entitled to know how the miners feel about it. Another cause of slow-downs or insufficient production is the inability of coal operators to obtain priorities for repairs and replacements until the machinery to be replaced is entirely out of commission. In one of the larger mines production was seriously eurtailed for several weeks until motor replacements could be made. Virtually all of the time lost was attributable to delays in obtaining priorities. In ation the has meantime the coal organized a pool operators associto make the re- THE SEARCHLIGHT sources of the entire industry responsive to special emergencies as they arise. That action has proven both timely and effective. It has done much to relieve the situation. Comment by His Excellency, Herbert B. Maw, that excessive shipments of coal to out of state destinations is a principal cause of the Utah shortage is merely another of those illadvised, adolescent remarks that aggravate rather than help. | Surely the people of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and California, who have depended on Utah coal for three decades, should not now be eut off from their source of supply until the Utah market is glutted. Instead, there should be a careful distribution and an attempt to provide for minimum needs everywhere—until John L. Lewis can be made to see the hght. he Governor has missed the bus completely m dealing with the coal problem. His proposal to call a Governors’ conference to deal with the problem was properly ignored by executives of nearby states. It was too obvious an attempt to keep His Excelleney’s name in the news. And besides, the Governors could have no actual power to force a settlement. It is doubtful if either operators or union members want to disturb the 5-day, 35-hour work week as a peacetime arrangement. It has worked rather well. But in wartime there has to be greater flexibility. The mines must produce all the coal needed for all purposes. An arbitrary 7-hour, o-day week without local authority to vary the rule to meet war needs is rapidly becoming intolerable. Unless Mr. Lewis and the policy committee of the UMWA grasp that fact they may do a signal dis-service to the cause of collective bargaining. The coal shortage in Utah and other west- ern states will end if and when Utah miners are permitted to work more than 7 hours a day—8, 9, or 10 hours if necessary. Until that is done the situation will not improve. |