CALLED OFF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1943, Page 3

CALLED OFF

FOR TRUCE PERIOD OF 15 DAYS UNITED STATES COAL STRIKE FOLLOWING ON WARNING BY PRESIDENT. WAGE & PRICE PROBLEMS. WASHINGTON, May 3. Shortly after President Roosevelt had delivered a nation-wide broadcast in which he warned the miners that one individual, or the leaders of any one group would not be allowed to interfere with the war effort. Mr John L. Lewis, the president of the striking miners, announced that work would be resumed tomorrow in the soft coal mines for a period of 15 days pending further negotiations in the dispute.

Mr Lewis said that an agreement had been reached at a conference in Washington with the Secretary of the Interior, Mr Harold Ickes, and the head of the United States Conciliation Service, Mr John Steelman. The policy committee of the United Mine Workers’ Association had unanimously agreed to restore all mines to immediate operation for the 15-day period, which would be utilised in co-opera-tion with Mr Ickes to work out a new wage contract for the anthracite and bituminous coal industry. The new contract would be retroactive to April 1 in the bituminous coal and to May 1 in the anthracite.

"It is our desire to co-operate with the Government to relieve the country from the confusion and stress of the existing situation,” said Mr Lewis. “We are hopeful that the Government and the citizens of the nation will accept this as an act of wholesome good faith, which will secure for the mineworkers’ proper consideration of their wage proposals.” In his broadcast Mr Roosevelt had said, “We will win the war only as we produce and deliver the total American effort on the high seas and battlefronts. This requires an unrelenting and uninterrupted effort on the home front. The stopping of the coal supply, even for a short time involves a gamble with the lives of American soldiers and sailors and the future security of the whole people. “I know that the cost of living is troubling the miners’ families as well as the families of millions of other workers. The Government has been determined to maintain stability of prices and wages, but so far it has been unable to keep the prices of some necessities as low as we should like. Whenever we find that the prices of essentials have risen too high they will bo brought down. Whenever we find that price ceilings have been violated the violators will be punished. “A war is going on, and the coal will be mined no matter what any individual thinks about it.”