Vol. 77/No. 10 March 18, 2013
March 18, 1988
LEBANON, Va.—The heat was turned up on Pittston Coal Group as 3,000 miners, their families and pensioners rallied here March 6 at the high school gym.The protesters had come from mining areas in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia to demand that this obstinate coal operator negotiate a contract with the union.
On January 31, the contract between the company and the United Mine Workers of America expired. Pittston has refused to sign an agreement modeled along the lines of the contract the union recently signed with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.
The company has also refused to pay pension and health benefits to retirees since the contract expired.
March 18, 1963
PARIS—In face of steadily rising prices, the wages of state employes have remained stationary for some time. France’s miners asked the government to bring their wages back into line with living costs. This required an increase of 11 percent. The de Gaulle regime responded by offering 5.77 percent—not at once but spread over the next year. This irritated the miners.Talk about strike action spread rapidly through the coal fields. The response of the government was to announce a decree “requisitioning” the miners; that is, making it obligatory to show up on the job and to work as usual under threat of heavy fines and jail sentences. Strike action began in the Lorraine area and spread to the Nord and Pas-de-Calais.
March 19, 1938
HATBORO, Pa.—Despite a brutal attack by vigilantes, armed with tear gas, guns and clubs, C.I.O. workers of the Roberts and Mander Stove Co. won a decisive victory, when, after a five-week sit-down strike, officials of the company agreed to recognize the Steel Workers Organization Committee as the sole bargaining agency for the 800 employes.The agreement was signed after an unsuccessful attempt by the company to break the strike by ousting the sit-downers, who had occupied the plant since early in February.
A mob of 500, protected by over 100 local and state police, bombarded the plant with bricks and tear gas. The workers replied with flint pebbles and the jet of a fire hose.
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