of rock running through the middle of the vein. Where the two veins merged there remained no necessity for taking down top rock where the full height was mined, but it then became necessary to handle the strip of rock between the two veins. The company put on a new rate, and the miners presented a grievance. This grievance was first presented in October, 1904. The company claimed that it had the right, under the award, to readjust the rates of compensation whenever there is a change in the conditions under which the miner is working. The Board of Conciliation disagreed and the case went to an umpire. The umpire held that the case was one to which the award of the Commission was not applicable and the grievance was not sustained. But the umpire's decision also stated that "the question of what rate should be paid for the handling of the rock imbedded in the coal vein was a proper subject for a new agreement." The matter did not come up again until 1912, when a grievance was presented by certain employees in the Ontario Colliery that since 1904 there has been no fixed and agreed-upon rate for cutting the rock under question. Again the case went to an umpire-it happened that it was the same umpire, Dr. Neilland the decision was the same so far as the award and the agreement were concerned. But instead of merely suggesting that the question was a subject for a new agreement, the second decision specifically provided "that as the first step towards a settlement of this grievance, the proper representatives of the Company shall meet with the miners working in the chambers to which this grievance applies, or with a committee selected by these miners, and endeavor in good faith to agree upon some fixed and definite rate or rates to be paid for handling this rock. This first step is directed in conformity with the fourth award of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, which clearly implies that adjustments of grievances shall first be undertaken by consultation between the superintendent or manager of the mine or mines and the miner or miners directly interested.' If no agreement can be reached as a result of this first step, then in conformity with subsection (d) of the agreement of May, 1912, the representative of the Company shall meet with the Grievance Committee and the member of the Board of Conciliation and endeavor to 1 Report of Board of Conciliation, Grievance No. 128. 2 Ibid. Grievance No. 214, Item 3.

the

agree upon a rate or rates. In the event of a failure to agree, fixing of the rate shall be referred to the Conciliation Board; and when a rate shall be finally agreed upon, it shall be retroactive to a date ten days after the date on which this decision is presented to the meeting of the Conciliation Board. It is to be understood that this decision applies only to the handling of what can be properly called 'rock,' and that the rates are to be fixed for this only."1

A second case involved the payment of a large sum of money by the anthracite operators. It was of unusual importance because it involved the application of the sliding scale for March, 1912, the last month of the existence of that method of payment, and hence did not constitute a specific precedent. Apparently such a case involved merely an interpretation of the 1903 award; in reality it went beyond the award, because it had been found, in applying the sliding scale, that the strict letter of the award could not be carried out. The award provided that each employer should apply the increase in pay on the earnings of the particular month on the sales of which the sliding scale was calculated; the practice, however, was adopted of paying the sliding-scale increase by applying the percentage based on the sales of a given month on the earnings of the succeeding month until April 1, 1912, when a suspension occurred. After work was resumed the mine workers claimed that the increase, according to the sliding scale, for the month of March was still due them. Various questions arose as to the method by which this increase ought to be paid. The umpire, however, decided that the workers were entitled to receive the sliding-scale increase as calculated upon the basis of March coal prices. It will be noted, therefore, that this case was one which had to be decided as a case in equity. The Board of Conciliation failed to arrive at any agreement, and the umpire was called upon to act as arbitrator.

Within the last year or so the introduction of a coal-cutting machine has caused the bringing up of a question of rates of pay which apparently has no precedent or basis in preceding rulings and decisions. The question, in the form of a request for rates of pay higher than those set by operators who have installed the machine,

1 Report of Board of Conciliation, Grievance No. 214, Item 3.

2 Board of Conciliation, Decision of Umpire in re Sliding Scale for March, 1912 (rendered May 1, 1913).

has gone to the Board. The Board, in December, 1914, failed to agree on a decision and the matter went to Umpire George Gray. In this case the conciliation and arbitration machinery provided by the agreement has thus been called upon to act on a fundamental question which is not covered by the award or the subsequent agreements. It is significant that the 1915 demands of the tri-district convention of the United Mine Workers include one for "a readjustment of the machine-mining scale."

The 1915 demands, as has already been suggested, reflect the situation which has been created by the occurrence of such matters as these. Two distinct clauses in these demands indicate a desire on the part of the mine workers to change the conciliation machinery to meet the situation. They are as follows:

9. We demand a readjustment of the machine-mining scale to the extent that equitable rates and conditions shall obtain as a basis for this system.

10. We demand that arrangements of detailed wage scales and the settlement of internal questions, both as regards prices and conditions, be referred to the representatives of the operators and miners of each district to be adjusted on an equitable basis.

The trend is thus toward clothing the system of conciliation and arbitration with more definite and greater authority to settle fundamental questions of wages and conditions of labor. For over twelve years these questions have been regarded as settled by the 1903 award, except where situations have arisen which forced interpretations that were essentially supplementary agreements. It is now proposed to get farther away from the 1903 award as the constitution of industrial relations, to make the agreement the real constitution, and to transform the conciliation machinery into a more responsible and more responsive legislative body.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

EDGAR SYDENSTRICKER

XXXIV

EQUALIZING COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS1

WITHOUT

ITHOUT going too much into details of the organizations known as the Illinois Coal Operators' Association, on the one hand, and District Number 12 of the United Mine Workers of America, on the other, it must be understood that the basis of the agreement between them is that of a protected competitive existence for all. The rates of mining are so fixed that the coal operators can do business. That is the first and basic proposition. Naturally the rank and file of the miners expected a scale which would enable them to earn a practically uniform wage throughout the state. The leaders, however, contended that the first object of the scale was to permit every mine to run and get into the market, and that all other questions must be subservient to this. The first clause of the joint declaration of principles says: "This joint movement is founded and is to rest upon correct business ideas, competitive equality, and well-recognized principles of justice." This involves a consideration of railroad rates to market points, conditions of the coal mined, etc.

The effect of the strike of 1897, which was successful not only in Illinois but throughout the competitive bituminous field, was to bring into prime importance the interstate conferences and agreements. In the interstate convention the operators of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania are represented, and the rates of mining and the conditions are fixed in that convention for all points on a competitive basis; that is, so that each operator shall have a chance to mine coal and get it to his market. For Illinois the convention fixes only the price at Danville, Illinois, which is thereby made the basing point for the state. The Illinois Coal Operators' Association and the representatives of the mine workers of Illinois then meet in joint convention and adjust the rates throughout the state in accordance with the Danville rate.

394.

1 From Eleventh Special Report, U. S. Commissioner of Labor, 1904, pp. 390

At the interstate convention which followed the strike of 1897 the Illinois miners demanded a mine-run basis for Illinois and threatened to renew the strike if this was not conceded. That convention then fixed the mining price at 37 cents a ton for hand mining, run-of-mine coal, with a differential of 10 cents a ton run-of-mine for machine mining. That is, the companies were to pay 27 cents a ton for machine-mined coal in the Danville district and 37 cents a ton for hand-mined coal, the other rates in Illinois to be fixed competitively upon this basis. The Illinois joint conference of employers and miners met in Chicago in 1897 and adjusted the rates throughout the state.

The Illinois Coal Report for 1897 shows the effects of the equalizing principle on different sections of the state. In the northern, or thin-vein fields, the prices per gross ton were advanced 14 to 20 per cent, while in the southern, or thick-vein fields, the advance was 20 to 55 per cent. The prices in the northern fields had been near 50 cents per ton and in the southern fields 20 to 25 cents per ton. At these rates the miners in the southern fields had earned as high wages as those in the northern fields, but the advances following the strike placed the two sections nearer an equality in the cost of mining, but enabled miners in the southern fields, without restrictions on their output, to earn much higher wages than miners in the northern fields.

Perhaps the best statement of the principle underlying the Illinois agreement was made by Mr. Moorshead, a southern Illinois operator, who has had to surrender as much of the natural advantages of his position as anyone, in his reply to the miners of the Pekin mine who wanted increased compensation for the increased amount of dead work in that district. This was in the joint convention of 1902, held in Peoria, and his words throw a flood of light upon this subject of the basis of agreement:

. . Go into the northern field and the miners must suffer very much there as compared with the miner in the thick seam. When you get into the thick part of the No. 6 seam the operator suffers. You penalize him in his good conditions that he may not drive the more unfortunate operator with his thin seam out of the market. . . . We have banded together here so that the operators in every district might exist, notwithstanding the different conditions that prevail; and so long as we work on these lines some miners will have