Collective Bargaining in the Anthracite Coal Industry
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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS ROYAL MEEKER* Commissioner BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES\ /WHOLE 1Q1 BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS/ * * * I NUMBER 1 ^ 1 CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION SERIES: No. 6 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE ANTHRACITE COAL INDUSTRY MARCH, 1916 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1916 Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis CONTENTS. Page. Introduction.................................................................................................. 5-8 Summary...................................................................................................... 8-11 The establishment of a basis for collective bargaining..................................... 11-27 The period prior to 1899........................................................................... 12-18 1848-1850.......................................................................................... 13 1865-1875.......................................................................................... 13-16 1884-1888.......................................................................................... 16-18 From 1899 to 1903.................................................................................... 18-26 The preliminary struggle in 1900....................................................... 18-20 Plans of mine workers for a decisive contest, 1901.............................. 20,21 The strike of 1902.............................................................................. 21-23 The arbitration of 1902-3 ................................................................... 23-26 From 1903 until the present time.............................................................26,27 The making of trade agreements..................................................................... 28-72 The issues................................................................................................29-36 Arbitrative methods................................... ............................................ 36-38 Conciliative methods............. ................................................................. 38-46 Representation........................................................................ .........39-41 Process of making agreements................ ........................................... 41-46 Tendency toward recognition of United Mine Workers of America............ 46-51 Importance of suspensions in collective bargaining....................................51-57 Competition with bituminous coal as an element in collective bargaining.. 58-69 Collective action among employers in their relations with employees........69-72 The settlement of disputes under the agreements............................................ 73-98 The system of conciliation and arbitration of grievances and disputes....... 73-77 The nature of matters coming up for settlement................................... 77-82 General character of the settlements..................... ...................................82-87 The conciliation and arbitration plan in practice......................................87-98 Conciliation.......................................................................................87-97 Arbitration........................................................................................97,98 The success of the agreements.............. 1.......................................................98-125 Violations of the agreements................................................................. 100-104 Enforcement of the agreements............................................................ 104-106 Some effects of the agreements................................................. : ........... 106-121 Attitude of mine workers and operators toward the 1912 agreement....... 121-125 Appendix A.—Production and strikes......................................................... 126,127 Appendix B.—Findings of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission of 1903... 127-162 Appendix C.—Agreements supplemental to the award of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission of 1903........................................................................ 162-165 Appendix D.—Plan proposed by Anthracite Coal Strike Commission in 1903 for trade agreements.....................................; ..........................................165-168 Appendix E.—Demands of United Mine Workers, 1915.................................. 168 Appendix F.—Select list of references on collective bargaining in the anthracite field........................................................................................................ 168-171 3 Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis BULLETIN OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS. WHOLE NO. 191. WASHINGTON. MARCH, t9t«. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE ANTHRACITE COAL INDUSTRY.1 BY EDGAR 8TDEN STRICKER. INTRODUCTION. Collective bargaining in the anthracite coal industry furnished a striking example of the possibility of trade agreements and peace ful settlement of disputes between a group of employers, united by financial control and solidified by industrial concentration, and amass of unskilled and semiskilled workers, composed largely of recent im migrants from southern and southeastern Europe, inexperienced in collective action, and untrained in American unionism. There has not been a more notable chapter in the history of American capital and labor than the transition in the anthracite coal field o f Pennsyl vania from a situation in which trade agreements were believed to be improbable into a well-developed form of collective bargaining and an unusually efficient system of conciliation and arbitration of disputes. The basis for this development was established in the short period of three years, beginning with the strike of 1900 and ending with the arbitration by the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission in 1902-3. The developments in industrial relations on the basis thus laid have occurred in the 18 subsequent years, during which three trade agree ments have been negotiated. These and other distinctive features of the making of trade agree ments and of settling disputes under the agreements render collective bargaining and industrial relations in the anthracite coal industry somewhat unique. In the first place, the anthracite coal industry is peculiar for a number of well-known reasons: (1) It is geographically * 1 This study is based on a report made by the author for the Commission on Industrial Relations, and submitted to that commission in 1015. The report has been rearranged and somewhat revised for publication here. The author desires to express his acknowl edgments to those employers, officials of the union, mine workers, members and officials of the anthracite board of conciliation, and others who furnished much o f the documentary and other material utilized in this study. Especial acknowledgment is due Prof. George E. Barnett, Dr. Selig Perlman, and Mr. John H. Bradford, who were associated with him on the staff of the commission. 5 Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 6 BULLETIN OF THE BUBEAU OF LABOR STATISTICS. concentrated. Nearly all of the anthracite coal production of the United States is confined to five counties of Pennsylvania, and nearly the entire supply lies in an area of 496 square miles. (2) It is con centrated in its financial control. Seven large mining companies, which have been under the ownership and control of the anthracite coal-carrying railroads, and united in a community of interest which has been dominated by a group of financial interests in New York City, produced over half of the anthracite coal and purchased the output of a large proportion of the independent operators. (3) The evolution in coal consumption has tended to result in remov ing anthracite from the field of direct competition with bituminous, except in certain small sizes. (4) In spite of the geographical and industrial concentration of the industry, conditions of work differ more than in the bituminous because of the pitch of the tunnels, the size and direction of the veins, the proportion of slate and sulphur in the coal, the methods of mining, etc., necessitating unusually elaborate systems of differential rates of pay. In the second place, the conditions under which collective bargain ing was introduced and has been carried on in the anthracite field possess some features which are worth noting before taking up its history and its methods in detail: (1) Opposed to a highly con centrated control of the industry on the employers’ side has been a mass of worker’s which had become more and more heterogeneous from the standpoint of race and nationality. Before 1880 native- born workers and immigrant workers from Great Britain and Germany composed the working force. Since 1880 these workers have been gradually displaced by foreign-born workers of the so-called newer immigration from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy. The change in the racial composition of the mine workers occurred during the same period in which the concentration in the control o f the industry was consummated. The introduction of the collective bargaining principle in their industrial relations came at the time when the employers were perhaps most united