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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
A recent survey by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce reported that so-called “fringe benefits” are now taking 16.4 per cent of the payrolls of American industry as a whole. Probably the best-known of these welfare programs is the United Mine Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund, which was started in May, 1946, by agreement between the union and the Department of the Interior, then operating the mines, and which was accepted by the operators when the industry returned to private hands. The Fund is financed by a royalty on every ton of coal produced. The royalty was originally 5 cents a ton, but it has risen every year until it is now 50 cents a ton. The revenues of the Fund up to June 30, 1952, were $476,000,000; its expenditures in the same period were $387,000,000. These disbursements went to finance several different types of benefits—pensions for retired miners, hospital and medical care, rehabilitation of the disabled, maintenance of men who were permanently and totally disabled, and death benefits and maintenance aid for miners' families. The Fund is administered by three trustees: one named by the United Mine Workers, one by the operators, and one designated jointly.
1 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, News Notes, Oct. 31, 1952.
2 United Mine Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund, Four Year Summary and Review for the year ending June 30, 1951 (Washington, D. C., 1951)Google Scholar; idem, Report for the year ending June 30, 1952 (Washington, D. C, 1952). Additional information was kindly provided by Lorin E. Kerr, M.D., Assistant to the Executive Medical Officer of the Fund. The material in the text applies only to the bituminous coal industry; a similar plan exists for the anthracite industry at the present time.
3 Roberts, Peter, Anthracite Coal Communities (New York, 1904), pp. 264–73.Google Scholar
4 U. S. Geological Survey, 22nd Annual Report, 1900–1901 (Washington, 1902)Google Scholar, Part III, p. 106; Jones, Eliot, The Anthracite Coal Combination in the United States (Cambridge, 1914).Google Scholar
5 U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902–3, Proceedings, XLVII, 8050–8. Mimeographed copies of this transcript may be found in the Library of Congress and in the U. S. Department of Labor Library.
6 The average contract miner, the highest paid class of labor in the industry, probably had an annual income of about $450-$500 in 1901. U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, Report on the Anthracite Coal Strike of May-October, 1902 (Washington, 1903), pp. 177–80.Google Scholar
7 U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902–3, Proceedings, XXXVII, 6138–43.
8 Ibid., pp. 6215–25.
9 Ibid., XXXI, 4886–92.
10 Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 269.
11 U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902–3, Proceedings, XLV, 7779–84.
12 Ibid., XLIII, 7384–7401.
13 Ibid., pp. 7208–27.
14 U. S. House of Representatives, 50th Cong., 2nd Sess., Report No. 4147, Labor Troubles in the Anthracite Regions of Pennsylvania, 1887–1888 (Washington, D. C., 1889), pp. 481–482. Whereas the information taken from the Proceedings of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission of 1902–3 was provided by the companies concerned, the following data is based on testimony before a partisan committee of Congress by a member of the Pennsylvania legislature from the Lehigh district. As noted below, however, this witness did offer documentary exhibits, consisting of company pay vouchers, for some of his testimony.
15 Ibid., pp. 489–91.
16 Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 268.
17 U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, Report on the Anthracite Coal Strike of May-October, 1902, pp. 27–31.
18 Ibid.; also compare U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789–1945 (Washington, D. C., 1949)Google Scholar, Series G 144–158, p. 154, to Series K 82–93, p. 206, although the figures are sufficiently ambiguous that they may not be comparable.
19 Ibid., Series G 144–158, p. 154; but see U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, Report on the Anthracite Coal Strike of May-October, 1902, pp. 27–28.
20 Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 271.
21 Ginger, Ray, The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene Victor Debs (New Brunswick, N. J., 1949), pp. 21–45, 55.Google Scholar
22 Jones, Anthracite Coal Combination, pp. 29–31.
23 Ibid., Chart I, p. 45.
24 Ibid., p. 31.
25 Argument of Franklin B. Gowen … In the Case of the Commonwealth vs. Thomas Munley … (Pottsville, Pa., 1876); Dewees, F. P., The Molly Maguires (Philadelphia, 1877)Google Scholar; Martin, Edward Winslow, The History of the Great Riots … Together with a Full History of the Mollie Maguires (Philadelphia, 1877)Google Scholar; Commons, John R. and Associates, History of Labour in the United States (New York, 1918), II, 181–5Google Scholar; Bimba, Anthony, The Molly Maguires (New York, 1932)Google Scholar; Coleman, James Walter, Labor Disturbances in Pennsylvania, 1850–1880 (Washington, D. C., 1936)Google Scholar; Foner, Philip S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States (New York, 1947), pp. 455–64Google Scholar; New York Times, December 7, 1947, p. 66, col. 1–4. These sources show a shift of judgment toward a more favorable view of the Molly Maguires.
26 Roy, Andrew, A History of the Coal Miners of the United States (Columbus, Ohio, n.d. [1903?]), p. 103.Google Scholar
27 U. S. Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902–3, Proceedings, XLV, 7784.