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Carter’s Energy Insecurity: The Political Economy of Coal in the 1970s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2014
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- Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2014
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1. Chafe, William H., The Rise and Fall of the American Century: The United States from 1890–2009 (New York, 2009), 235.Google Scholar See also Kaufman, Burton I., The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. (Lawrence, Kans., 1993), 1–3Google Scholar, for a similar argument about Carter’s ill-fated bypassing of Congress based on an arrogant notion of himself as a “public trustee” who knew better than the legislature. Carter’s legislative troubles likewise frame Barrow, John C., “An Age of Limits: Jimmy Carter and the Quest for a National Energy Policy,” in The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post–New Deal Era, ed. Fink, Gary M. and Graham, Hugh Davis (Lawrence, Kans., 1998), 158–78.Google Scholar
2. Haas, Garland A., Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Frustration (Jefferson, N.C., 1992), 2.Google Scholar Haas makes a similar argument as Chafe about the problems generated by the secretive nature of the energy bill’s creation; see 63–71.
3. Dumbrell, John, The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation (New York, 1993), 44–45.Google Scholar
4. Christian Science Monitor, 3 May 1977. The 54 percent figure, while down from 70 percent a mere five years earlier, was nonetheless obviously still a majority of the United States’s coal supply. See Chicago Tribune, 13 June 1977.
5. On Lewis’s command of the union, see Levy, Elizabeth and Richards, Tad, Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win: The United Mine Workers (New York, 1977), 44–68.Google Scholar
6. See the retrospective after Miller’s death in the Washington Post, 13 July 1985.
7. Christian Science Monitor, 3 May 1977; Paul A. Clark, The Miners’ Fight for Democracy: Arnold Miller and the Reform of the United Mine Workers (Ithaca, 1981), 57–74.
8. Wall Street Journal, 31 January 1978. Black lung protections were a top target of coal companies, but since the president was a strong advocate for black lung legislation, it is unsurprising that the BCOA declined to make it a major issue in these negotiations. On Carter’s support for black lung protections, see Smith, Barbara Ellen, Digging Our Own Graves: Coal Miners and the Struggle over Black Lung Disease (Philadelphia, 1987).Google Scholar
9. Ibid.; Chicago Tribune, 12 February 1978. According to Council of Economic Advisers chairman Charles Schultze, Energy Secretary James Schlesinger was the catalyst for Carter’s intervention in the strike, walking into a cabinet meeting and proclaiming that the strike would produce an unemployment disaster if not addressed quickly. See Charles Schultze Interview, Miller Center University of Virginia, Jimmy Carter Presidential Oral History Project, 8–9 January 1982.
10. New York Times, 15 February 1978; Los Angeles Times, 15 February 1978; Fink, Gary, “Labor Law Revision and the End of the Postwar Labor Accord,” in Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894–1994: The Labor-Liberal Alliance, ed. Boyle, Kevin (Albany, N.Y., 1998), 243–44.Google Scholar On Marshall’s pro-labor background, and his clashes with Carter advisers who preferred to fight inflation rather than stimulate job growth, see Melvyn Dubofsky, “Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Productivity,” in The Carter Presidency, ed. Fink and Graham, 98–99. Though CEA chair Charles Schultze and Marshall had running disagreements on the competing priorities of fighting inflation and addressing unemployment, Schultze (somewhat condescendingly) sympathized with Marshall’s position in the coal strike and blamed Energy Secretary Schlesinger for getting the administration involved in an impossible position. “Poor Ray Marshall—it wasn’t his fault. He was given instructions [by Carter] to go out and do all this. They got the miners into the White House and then the miners rejected the pact and everything else.” See Charles Schultze Interview, Miller Center University of Virginia, Jimmy Carter Presidential Oral History Project, 8–9 January 1982.
11. Wall Street Journal, 15 February 1978.
12. One industrial labor analyst later estimated that the strike put approximately 25,500 manufacturing workers out of work in an eleven-state “coal dependent” region stretching from the Midwest to the Southeast. See Ackermann, John, “The Impact of the Coal Strike of 1977–78,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 32, no. 2 (1979): 181–83.Google Scholar
13. Los Angeles Times, 12 March 1978; Chicago Tribune, 2 April 1980. UAW President Douglas Fraser cast the $2 million contribution as repayment for UMWA assistance to the UAW in the latter’s formative years. “The United Mine Workers stood with the UAW during some of our most difficult struggles,” said Fraser. “The miners under John L. Lewis supplied money and organizing help that was crucial to the survival and growth of the UAW in the 1930s. We haven’t forgotten that.”
14. Within a few weeks of taking office, Carter had set a target for a minimum-wage increase that was too low for labor’s preferences, and his insistence on budgetary restraint also dismayed workers who had anticipated large-scale social spending to stimulate unemployment reduction. See William E. Leuchtenberg, “Jimmy Carter and the Post-New Deal Presidency,” in The Carter Presidency, ed. Fink and Graham, 12–15.
15. New York Times, 24 February 1978; Christian Science Monitor, 15 February 1978; Washington Post, 8 March 1978.
16. Memorandum from Larry S. Gibson to Douglas B. Huron, Coal Strike Situation Reports, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 3/10/78–10/78 [O/A 7751], White House Counsel’s Files (hereafter CO), Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
17. Ibid.
18. New York Times, 16 February 1978; 20 February 1978.
19. Washington Post, 8 March 1978; Memorandum to Honorable F. Ray Marshall from Mary C. Lawton, “Re: Analysis of Possibilities for Seizure of Coal Mines,” 17 February 1978, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 2/78 [O/A 7751], CO; Memorandum to the Honorable Robert J. Lipschutz and the Honorable Stuart F. Eizenstat from John M. Harmon, “Seizure Pursuant to New Legislation,” 24 February 1978, ibid.
20. New York Times, 25 February 1978.
21. Chicago Tribune, 25 February 1978; “Nation: Entering the Doomsday Arena,” Time, 27 February 1978.
22. New York Times, 1 March 1978, 5 March 1978.
23. New York Times, 5 March 1978. Inflation czar Alfred Kahn, according to one historian, believed that powerful trade unionists exercised monopoly power and exploited nonunion workers, and insisted that “Carter had to put labor in its place.” See Dubofsky, “Jimmy Carter and the End of the Politics of Productivity,” in The Carter Presidency, ed. Fink and Graham, 99.
24. Fink, “Labor Law Revision and the End of the Postwar Labor Accord,” in Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894–1994, ed. Boyle, 245.
25. Memorandum from Wayne L. Horvitz to Honorable F. Ray Marshall and Honorable Landon Butler, Subject: Coal Negotiations, 1 March 1978, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 3/1–9/78 [O/A 7751], CO; Memo for the President from Stu Eizenstat, “Actions in the Coal Strike,” 3 March 1978, ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1978.
28. Ibid.; “Nation: Entering the Doomsday Arena,” Time, 27 February 1978.
29. Ibid.; Jimmy Carter to Attorney General Griffin Bell, 9 March 1978, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 3/1–9/78 [O/A 7751], CO; Temporary Restraining Order, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Pleadings, 3–4/78 [O/A 7751], CO.
30. Memorandum for Bob Lipshutz and Stu Eizenstat from Doug Huron, Re: Seizure, 8 March 1978, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 3/1-9–78 [O/A 7751], CO; Washington Post, 12 March 1978. To bolster the administration’s case for invoking Taft-Hartley, several cabinet officials submitted affidavits outlining the broader economic damage that the strike was causing. Agriculture Secretary Bob Berglund, for example, predicted food shortages and sharply higher prices, since a disruption in electric power would affect dairy, poultry, beef, and hog producers. See Affidavit of Bob Berglund, Secretary of Agriculture, 8 March 1978, box 9, folder Coal Strike: Pleadings, 3–4/78 [O/A 7751], CO.
31. Christian Science Monitor, 13 March 1978; Washington Post, 12 March 1978.
32. Chicago Tribune, 14 March 1978; Los Angeles Times, 14 March 1978; Wall Street Journal, 17 March 1978. The UMWA had been an independent union since being forced out of the American Federation of Labor in 1948. Meany’s conspicuous support for the UMWA against the administration thus highlighted the AFL-CIO’s stark dissatisfaction with Carter.
33. Chicago Tribune, 15 March 1978; Wall Street Journal, 17 March 1978; “Coal Strike Incident Highlights for March 14, 1978,” box 9, folder Coal Strike: Key Memos, 3/10/78–10/78 [O/A 7751], CO; Washington Post, 17 March 1978.
34. Washington Post, 26 March 1978; Los Angeles Times, 25 March 1978, 28 March 1978; Christian Science Monitor, 27 March 1978.
35. Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency, 17. See also Dark, Taylor, “Organized Labor and the Carter Administration: The Origins of Conflict,” in The Presidency and Domestic Policies of Jimmy Carter, ed. Rosenbaum, Herbert D. and Ugrinsky, Alexej (Westport, Conn., 1994), 774–79.Google Scholar
36. Burton Kaufman argues that Carter’s “primary [labor] concern was with the unorganized, bottom rung of the labor market rather than with more highly paid union members.” See The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr., 29.
37. Ibid., 78.
38. See, for example, Nyden, Paul J., “Rank-and-File Movements in the United Mine Workers of America,” in Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s, ed. Brenner, Aaron, Brenner, Robert, and Winslow, Cal (New York, 2010), 173–97Google Scholar, which emphasizes continuities in UMWA bargaining tactics throughout the twentieth century.
39. See Ackermann, “The Impact of the Coal Strike of 1977–78,” 187–88.
40. An internal memorandum outlined the administration’s perception of the dire situation that the strike was creating. Cyrus Vance, Carter’s secretary of state, noted that the strike was reducing domestic energy production by the equivalent of about three million barrels of oil per day, or roughly the entire daily production of Kuwait. As domestic reserves of coal dwindled, Vance said, more oil would have to be imported to replace the lost production. Vance feared that “because the cushion of excess supply in the world market is small, any significant increase in demand,” such as would be created by a continued coal strike, “would lead to increased pressures within OPEC to raise world prices,” perhaps permanently. See Memorandum for the President from Cyrus Vance, 20 February 1978, RAC Project Number, NLC-128 [Plains File]-13-5-12-7, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
41. Judith Stein, Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the 1970s (New Haven, 2010), xii. On Carter’s decision to combat inflation at the expense of unemployment, see also W. Carl Biven, Jimmy Carter’s Economy: Policy in an Age of Limits (Chapel Hill, 2002), x.
42. The story of the Yablonski murders helps frame a major new publication on the declining standing of organized labor in the 1970s; see Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New York, 2010), 23. For examples of scholarship on the broader declining public image of organized labor, see Lawrence Richards, Union-Free America: Workers and Antiunion Culture (Urbana, 2008); David Witwer, Shadow of the Racketeer: Scandal in Organized Labor (Urbana, 2009); James B. Jacobs, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement (New York, 2006).
43. See, for example, Gary M. Fink, “Fragile Alliance: Jimmy Carter and the American Labor Movement,” in The Presidency and Domestic Policies of Jimmy Carter, ed. Rosenbaum and Igrinsky, 783–803, and Russell D. Motter, “Seeking Limits: The Passage of the National Energy Act as a Microcosm of the Carter Presidency,” in ibid., 572.
44. See Levy and Richards, Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win, 108–12.