Word: coal
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...vows to "get tough with the operators until they scream." Miller's tough approach consists of demands for a 20 per cent wage hike, higher safety standards and a rise in the ante contributed by mine operators to the Union pension fund from $.80 to $2.40 per ton of coal. These benefits would increase the industry's manpower costs by only 50 per cent, while coal prices have doubled in the last four years. Miller is threatening the coal industry with a strike of up to six months to secure his long overdue goals...
Miller's new staff of union officials, which has been recruited from the coal fields, can readily appreciate the worker demand for a decent standard of living and security in old age. To demonstrate miners' vital need for pension and safety benefits, his advisors emphasize the industry's meager pension benefits of $150 a month and an injury rate three times that of manufacturing industries. The fatality rate of 120 miners a year far outstrips that of any other country's coal industry, and the infamous "black lung" disease afflicts one out of three miners--including Miller himself...
...opportunity for American coal miners to win twentieth century working conditions has arrived. The economic climate, which has traditionally been to the advantage of the management, has been drastically altered by the rise in fuel prices. Economic conditions unconducive to equitable contract settlements have existed almost continuously since the United Mine Workers' inception in 1892. In the early' nineties the union won modest gains for its members until technological advances in the industry and a decline in coal prices reduced the coal companies' need for manpower. This trend continued through the 1950's when the introduction of such fully automated...
...DEMAND for coal began to rise slowly in the late 1960's and increased dramatically after the Persian Gulf oil embargo until it reached the current price level of $30 a ton. The industry's simultaneous rush to expand production has increased the need for miners so that for the first time in over a decade the large coal companies have begun hiring new workers. Miller intends to use the union's resulting leverage over management to obtain such benefits as paid sick leave and a cost of living escalator clause that have become standard in the contracts of many...
...imminent elevation of the miner's position to that of workers in other industries comes during a period of change for the coal industry. American energy needs will require a doubling of coal production by 1980. The coal industry, which has undergone a longterm decline since the disappearance of the steam locomotive, will have to expand at an unprecedented rate to meet the nation's energy requirements. Electric generators that presently burn oil will have to switch to coal, and coal gasification plants will begin to replace diminishing natural gas reserves in the late 1970's. Despite the impending boom...