LABOR: Entirely Satisfactory

For the nation’s 400,000 soft-coal miners who quit work last fortnight (TIME, Sept. 30) their strike turned out to be nothing but a good, profitable rest. While they loafed and slept, representatives of operators and miners who had been haggling in Washington since mid-February came to terms in four days. Contracts were signed to begin this week, run until April 1, 1937. Day-rate workers, including two-thirds of all miners, got their basic pay upped from $5 to $5.50 per day. Adding on similar increases for piece-workers, operators figured their labor bill had been raised 15¢ per ton, $90,000,000 per year. Virginia, Tennessee and some Kentucky operators held out because of disagreement over wage differentials, but their 23,000 miners were not enough for the rest to worry about.

Said President John L. Lewis of United Mine Workers: “This contract is entirely satisfactory.”

Wrote President Roosevelt, who had five times helped postpone the dreaded strike: “Tonight’s agreement will make my long-deferred vacation a greater pleasure.”