THE IMAGINED UTOPIA OF JOHN L_LEWIS |
U.S. mine disasters and automation

By S. SARKIN

(The following article wu. written
prior to the mine tragedies in Hazel-
ton and Moab but it helps to shed
light on the conditions under which
the miners in the U.S. are presently
working and the reasons for the un-
safe conditions whichculminate in
such disasters.) é

A? explosion of unusual magni-

tude ripped through the mine in

Clarksburg, West Virginia in
April claiming the lives of 22
miners, and when the rescue
workers reached the scene ofthe
explosions they found that instead
of fallen walls and acave-in situ-
ation they were confronted by
large flames and the charred
remains of 22 mine workers. An
investigation followed and the fol-
- lowing report was issued as a
~ result:
_ Several weeks prior to the ex-
plosion a city inspector had been
to the mine and had included in
his report 1) that a precarious
amount of coal dust was present
in the mine and 2) an accumu-
_ lation of metane gas which indi-
cated a serious gap in the safety _
measures being adopted in the
mine.
_ A few days prior to the ex-
plosion the same inspector again
paid a visit to the mine and re-
ported that only a small portion
of the accumulation of dust and
gas had been cleared. Without
doubt the explosion was a direct
result of the irresponsibility of
the mine owners to take the
necessary safety measures.

a. Radical changes have taken
Place in the coal industry of the
U.S. These changes have affected
the role and the position of the
Union and these have been reflec-

_ ted in the life and working con-
ditions of the miners.

The day when coal was called
**king”’ is no longer here. In large
measure, coal has been replaced
by oil, In addition, the techno-
logical methods of digging coal
have advanced by leaps and
bounds. Automation has brought
about a virtual revolution in the
coal industry.

In the last couple of years,
even newer and more gigantic
digging machines have been in-’*
troduced. In the coal mines of
New Lexington, Ohio, a new ma-
chine is now at work which is
operated completely by- button
control and digs three feet per
minute. The same machine digs
thousands of feet into the coal
vein, pulverizes the coal and in
the course of one hour 266 tons
of coal flow from its mighty
jaws.

Last year this mine produced
1,600,000 tons of coal and while
doing so employed a total of
67 workers and other employees.
Moreover, this machine can
reach coal beds which were form-
erly considered economically un-
profitable to exploit.

The latest automated digging
machine has a-movable scooper-
which weighs 12,000,000 tons,
digs into the earth to a height
of a 12-storey building, lifts its
full bucket and empties coal to

which is equivalent to a 14-
storey building. Only 3 people are
employed to operate this
machine. e

Mechanization and automation
have also made it possible to
sell coal at a cheaper price than
in 1948. This despite the fact
that the earnings of the coal-
miners have increased by $10.20
per day. It should, however, be
borne in mind that the product-
ivity of the miner today is 3
times as great as it was in 1948,
even in such mines where simple
mechanization processes have
‘been introduced. Coal from the
United States is today being ex-.
ported to Europe and sold at a
cheaper price than is the coal
mined in Europe.

A good illustration of the cata-
strophe which has befallen the
miners as a result of automation
can be found in the town of Haz-
ard, Kentucky. Five years ago,
5,000 miners lived in this town
and were employed in 30 organ-

‘ized coal pits. In accordance with '

the Union agreement, they earned
$24.25 per day. In addition, the >
mineowners paid 40¢ for every
ton of coal to the Welfare Fund.
Miners .looked forward to even
better times when mechanization
and automation would reach their
town. °

The results, however, were to .

be entirely different. Like an epi-
demic, unemployment spread and
this was followed shortly by suf-
fering and hunger. The mad
scramble for jobs created enmity
and physical violence. A _ by-
product ofthis was the emergence
of .small open-shop' mines
commonly known as dog holes.
Poverty led the coal miners to:
physical battles in the search ‘
for jobs. _

The owners of.the small mines
utilized the situation to cut wages
to the bone. In the town of Haz-
ard today there is only one or-
ganized mine left. About 2,000 of
the 5,000 miners are now emp-,

loyed in over 50 dog holes, and -

they are paid $12 a day for their
labor. A good many areemployed
for $6 per day for a 8 to 5 day

week.

Hazard is as dark and gloomy
as the coal mines in it. ‘‘Pov-

‘erty reigns supreme in Hazard,”

reports a correspondent of the
U.S. News World Reporter after
a visit to the town. » 3
- In the coal mines of the Uni-

ted States. there are presently

125,000 workers. This compares
with the figure of 441,631 in 1948,
During the course of the last 10
years, the United Mineworkers
Union has siffered a loss of over
100,000 members. In anumber of
mines, the 40¢ contributiontothe.
Welfare Fund has been elimi-

nated.
' Tt is because of this, declared

the Union leadership, that it was
necessary to close 10 hospitals.
The Union has also been forced
to’ cut. the pension payments of
$100 to $75. The many new prob-
lems in this ever-growing diffi-
cult situation are as yet not

the tune of 140 feet in height:

eames nies

known. Naturally, the miners are

NG ee

IN
OMe ne

very unhappy. Many ofthem feel
that their situation is related to
the loss of their faithful and
heroic leader, John L. Lewis,
because he is both old and sick.

Miners still remember that it
was John L. Lewis who led the
coal workers out of ‘‘Egypt’’.
The fact that the gains made by
the miners were attained after
much blood had been spilled by
fighting miners is not forgotten.
Many still remember the heroic
struggles in the company towns

against the Pinkerton spies and .

gangsters who were in the pay of
the coal barons. Under the lead-
ership of John L. Lewis the
mighty Mineworkers Union was
built. It was this union which later
made the greatest contribution
hoth financially and organization-
ally in order to organize their
fellow workers in the steel in-
‘dustry.

Thus the initiative was created

for industrial trade unionism and
the founding of the C.I.0. Thisnew
trade union centre undertook the
immense task of organizing mil- -
lions ofnon-organized workers in
the United States and Canada.
This was an historic act in the
1930s which changed the face of
the trade union movement. '
The goal that John L. Lewis set
himself at that time was to sur-
round the Miners Union with a
number of fortresses in order to
guarantee forthe miners an ever-
lasting place under the capitalist
sun. For Lewis it was sufficient
to insure a strong position at the
negotiating table with the bosses.
The ideology of John L. Lewis
was not based on a class posi-
tion. His view was that the worker
needed to become a FACTOR in
Capitalist society. The consist-
-ency of this view was to be seen
in the fact that huge sums of union
funds were invested in coal
mines, banks, shipping and mort-

gages. Lewis attempted tocreate ~
an imagined utopia for workers in
a capitalist system.

For years, John L. Lewis
called upon the coal barons to —
introduce new methods and new —
machines in the coal industry. —
But Lewis could not foresee what’
has actually come into being in
the form of automation and tech- —
nological advance. His chief —
weakness and, as a result, his
greatest shortcoming was thathe ~
could not understand the funda- —
mental basis of capitalism andthe
character of private ownership
and its voracious desire for —
profit. He didnot understand that
the mad dash for profits accent-
uates class interests and that this
is decisive in the struggle for the
well being of the working masses.

Because of these serious mis-
takes and the striving for anima- —
gined utopia, the miners aretoday _
paying a heavy price.

AUTOMATED SHIP TO CARRY B.C. NEWS-
PRINT TO U.S. This is the Norwegian designed
MS Rondeggen which recently called at Van-
couver. It is employed hauling off B.C.’s semi-
Processed wood resources. It has three-gantry-

type cranes which travel on rails mounted on
the deck. The entire loading operation is

_ handled by push buttons. It can load rolls of
newsprint at 1,000 tons per hour under any
weather conditions.

NARROWING THE GAP

By V. KUDROV
Soviet Economist

7 substance and character
~ of the modern revolutionary
process are determined pri-
marily by the achievements of
socialism in the peaceful
economic competition with cap-
italism. Socialism will triumph
completely when it outstrips cap-
italism in the volume and effici-
ency of social production, in
labor productivity and living
standards of the people,

In doing away with the con-
sequences of Stalin’s personality
cult, the Communist Party of the

“Soviet Union has fully restored

also the Leninist scientific ap-
proach to economic construction,

The building up of a socialist
society has become the im-
mediate practical job of the Soviet
people.

Particularly great successes
in the economic competition with

_capitalism were scored by the
‘Soviet people in the past decade,
. from 1953 to 1962,

The national income has grown
140 percent, industrial output has
almost trebled, and agricultural
production has increased 67 per-
cent.

The world’s biggest electric.
stations were commissioned in
this period—the Volga stations,

and later the Bratsk project,
etc. Scores of millions of
hectares of virgin land have been
put under the plough.

Brilliant successes were
achieved during these years inthe
development of Soviet science
and technology, whose apogee was
the conquest of outer space,

e

The growth of the output of—
steel, oil, electric power, metal-
cutting machine-tools, tractors,
cement and several other basic
commodities have all substan-
tially exceeded the increase fig-
ures for the previous 35 years.

The living standards of the
Soviet people grew appreciably
during the past 10 years.

The real wages of factory and
office workers increased 44 per-
cent, and the real wages of col-
lective farmers—77 percent, In
1953 the allowances and grants
paid to the population from the
public funds amounted to 13,5
billion rubles, while the figure for
1962 was already 28. 4 billion rub-
les, | :

Unprecedentedly rapid housing
construction has been started in
the country. Last year alone more
than 12 million people had moved
into new homes, and the figure
for the whole decade runs into
more than 100 million, almost a

_ October 18, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page

half of the country’s population.
Ever new goods and machines,

easing household chores, are be-
coming part ofthe Soviet people’s
life. In 1953, for instance, the
country produced only 49,000 re-
frigerators, while in 1962 their
output already stood at 812,000. :
The output of washing machines
grew from 3,500to almost 1,800,-
000 last year, :
The national economy of the
Soviet Union is developing in
every respect much faster than
the economy of the UnitedStates.
The average yearly growth of
the Soviet Union’s national in- ©
come amounted to 9.2 percent in
1953-1962, while the figure for
the United States was 2.7 percent.
Superiority in the rates of
Soviet economic development is
quickly narrowing the gap be-
tween the volume of production —
in the USSR and the United
States. In 1950 the level ofindus-
trial production in the USSR ~
amounted approximately to 30
percent of the American output.
In 1957 the corresponding figure
was already 47, and last year— —
almost 63.
All this is exerting powerful —
influence onthe world revolution- —
ary process and is vivid proof:
of the advantages of the socialist —
system. —Abridged from TRUD