The Daily Worker

PA. MINE STRIKE SPREADS; MINERS STRIKE IN LILY
1,000 On Picket Line;
UMWA Overridden By Young Miners

PORTAGE, Pa. - The 700 miners who struck Jan. 21 at the Hughes Coal Co. mine at Cassandra, Pa., have tied up the mine 100 per cent and are standing solid.

One mine of the Hughes Coal Co. in Lilly have already joined the strike wave, 85 miners walking out against the decision of the company to deny the miners a union checkweighman. National Miners Union organizers are in the town of Lilly trying to spread the strike to other mines.

The miners in Cassandra walked out when the company fired the nightmen, 11 in all. At a local meeting when the strike vote was taken the U. M. W. A. officials, who have an agreement with the mine owners, were dilly-dallying with the question, but the miners one after another took the floor and insisted on the Strike. The U. M. W. A. officials are doing all in their power to keep the Strike movement from spreading to Lilly.

It was the young miners primarily who forced the strike over the heads of the A. F. of L. fakers. The young miners, of which there are quite a number in the Cassandra mine, were solid for the strike from the beginning. It was the vote of the youth that knocked the bottom out of the wishy-washy arguments of the U. M. W. A. officials.

The sentiment and militancy of the strikers is splendid. On the first day there were about 1,000 on the picket line, including women and children.

The National Miners Union has issued a leaflet to the miners warning them against U. M. W. A. betrayal and proposing the following demands be made:

1. Reinstatement of the fired nightmen.
2. No wage cuts.
3. No discrimination against any men for union activity.
4. Election of a broad rank and file committee to conduct the strike and carry on negotiations with the company.
5. Spread the strike to the Lilly mine.