The Daily Worker

THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1928

Operator Sells
Jobs to Miners
To Buy the Mine

Ohio Concern Extorts
$114 From Each Man

(By a Worker Correspondent)

BANNOCK, Ohio, Dec. 3.—In Eastern Ohio there are jobs aplenty. Any coal miner can get a job with the Scott Coal and Coke Co. However, there are "certain" requirements of the applicants. The first requirement is that he pay $114 for the job. The second requirement is that he sign a contract.

He must pay $30 (cash) as "down payment." For the next six pays, i.e., for the next three months, the company checks off from pay $14 per pay.

He must sign a "yellow dog" contract. (This is too mild a term for it). The contract reads to this effect: (a) Loaders: Must load five cars per day (three-ton plus cars) and these must be loaded six inches from the top of the cars. Slate, bone and "bug dust" must be loaded free. Loaders do not get paid by the ton but by the car. Five cars per day brings the loader $7.50 per day. (b) Motormen: Must pull 90 cars of coal per day. This is exclusive of stone, slate and dust. Motormen's wages—$7.50 per day. (c) Machine men: Must cut enough to keep eighteen men working. Wages $7.50 per day. (If machine breaks down it means from 16-18 hours work a day).

To Buy a Mine.

The whole scheme of the Scott Coal and Coke Co. is to raise enough money to buy the Tapline Mine at Bannock, Ohio, where the men will work after they pay $30 "down payment" and $114 total payment for their jobs. The company claims that the mine will cost them about $17,000 and the selling of jobs to the miners will bring about $17,784. The company guarantees the miners that it is a good investment and that no one will lose money on the deal. Any of the officials of the company will tell this. The company "promises" to pay back all the money the miners invested in the mine. The contract promised that the company will pay back after a year's employment, (in installments), the miners' investment.

The Scott Brothers who own and control the Scott Coal and Coke Co. are reputed to have gotten their "mining experience" in Bloody Logan County, W. Va., where miners were killed during the 1922 strike. Notables connected with this enterprise are Assistant Prosecutor Michiner, of Belmont County, aide to Prosecutor Waddel, famous for his strike-breaking during the miners' strike. Michiner is the legal adviser and "brains" for the Scott Coal and Coke Co. in their scheme to snare miners into signing this contract and buying jobs, and buying miners for the operators, paying their way into slavery and buying the industry for their employers.

Rumors are that many miners desperate because of long unemployment and facing the winter without food and clothing for their family have entered into this contract and put their last pennies into getting a job for the winter. Others who cannot read and do not understand the whole scheme have also bought jobs. Some who have only a hazy idea of what they are getting into, believe that they are part owners of this company. Advertisements in local papers to the effect that miners are wanted brings miners from distant points into this trap of the Scott Coal and Coke Co. In Eastern Ohio and various other parts of the coal fields there are all sorts of schemes to trick the miners. Co-operative plans, collaboration with the bosses and other schemes by the operators trick the savings of the miners into the crooked hands of speculators and coal operators who are trying to sell unproductive mines. All miners must be warned against entering into such contracts with the operators.