[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.

[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30, 1887.  The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio operators.  Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the miners’ union also lay in that State.  To prevent friction over the interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and conciliation was established.  This board consisted of five miners and five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from each of the States of this field.  Such a board of arbitration and conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the period of the eighties.  This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost in 1887, and Indiana in 1888.  It formed the real predecessor of the system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.

[52] See above, 136.

[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.

[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues.  It means that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union’s financial agent.

[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.

[56] Hitchman Coal and Coke Company v. Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.

[57] See below, 175-177.

[58] The actual membership of the union is considerably above these figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues.  The number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.  Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.

[59] See Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 205 ff.

[60] This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, 130-131.)

[61] Seniority also decides the assignment to “runs,” which differ greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.

[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888.  In 1898 it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules for mediation and voluntary arbitration.