Word: coal
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Some unions are also pitching in. The United Auto Workers contributed $2 million to a relief fund for miners and their families, and has organized food caravans into the coal fields. The United Steelworkers donated $1 million to retired miners who are not receiving their pension checks. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany announced a "massive, nationwide effort" to collect food for the miners and their families...
...companies claim that they are ready to start digging coal as soon as the miners return to work. A spokesman for the Consolidation Coal Division of Continental Oil says that its nine mines in western Pennsylvania could be opened early this week with plenty of work for as many as show up. Other big mining outfits, including U.S. Steel and Jones & Laughlin, report that they have been maintaining the mines during the strike with supervisory personnel...
Many companies, however, are wary of reopening without sufficient protection. Quin Morton III, executive secretary of the Kanawha Coal Operators Association, thinks a majority of miners would return "to work if the pickets could be kept away. But he will not hire extra guards to do the job. He recalls the strikebreaking tactics of his grandfather, Quin Morton I, whose private army was once accused of machine-gunning a mining camp inhabited by sleeping wives and children. Says Morton: "History shows us that one of the biggest mistakes coal operators can make is to bring in outside guards...
...strike have varied dramatically in recent weeks. One reason is that threatened utilities in eleven states have proved to be skilled improvisers. About 15% of the East-Central region's electrical power is now being "wheeled in," that is, imported from other grids that have plenty of coal or rely on other fuels. But the borrowing has now reached a maximum. Some grids are showing signs of strain from switching their transmission and generation patterns, and a massive blackout is always possible...
...Coal reserves in the region have dwindled from 82.6 million tons at the beginning of the strike to 43.3 million tons today. Nevertheless, an impressive 39% of the utilities' need is being supplied by non-U.M.W. mines, mostly in the West...