Word: krug
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...coal-burning U.S. was in no mood for quibbling, and Cap Krug knew it. The day after Lewis' statement reached him, he ordered the nation's coal supply frozen for essential use only: homes, hospitals, certain heavy industries, etc. Then the Office of Defense Transportation ordered a 25% reduction in coal-powered passenger service. There was an overall 37-day supply on hand. Railroads had a 30-day supply, but steel mills, with only a 14-day stock, would feel the pinch almost immediately. At a time when decontrol had just been put in operation, a coal strike...
Riposte. With this whopping bill of particulars before him, Cap Krug-whose greatest hope had been to get the Government out of the coal business-hit his vaulted ceiling. When he settled back, he called in the operators and talked them into conferring with Lewis. Then he offered a compromise negotiation plan which asked Lewis to keep his miners on the job for 30 to 60 days while negotiations continued...
This time it was Lewis' turn to blow up, and he did it handsomely. In a letter that would fire an oyster, he told Krug: "Your attention was again directed . . . to the brutal, 54-hour schedule of men laboring in the bowels of the earth. . . . You cavalierly now propose a 60-day freeze. . . . Your proposal ... is sheer folly and empty platitude. . . . You now, at the last hour of the last day yield to the blandishments and soothing siren voice of the operators and seek to place the United Mine Workers of America between Scylla and Charybdis. This course...
Before these thoughts had had time to sink in, Lewis gave notice that the Krug-Lewis contract would end on Nov. 20. Once again, the historic miners' policy of "no contract, no work" spelled strike...
Motion. Then, this week, came electrifying news. For the first time in five years the Government was preparing to take a stand against John Lewis. Cap Krug made the first moves. He announced that the mines would stay open, plastered the mine shafts with placards asking the men to stay at work...