COPPER: Trouble at the Mine

The U.S. is producing a lot less copper this year than it could if the copper mines could keep their miners from drifting off to greener pastures: higher-pay West coast shipyards and factories. Don Nelson and the C.I.O. Mine, Mill & Smelters Union are agreed: high pay in war plants* is playing hob with mining, just as it is playing hob with West Coast lumbering (TIME, June 29).

Sample troubles reported to WPB by the union last week in promoting its claim for higher pay:

>Anaconda’s vast Butte mine lost 1,000 men to other jobs in the first five months of this year (a third of them in May), could replace only 400.

>Manpower shortages in Utah mines run up to 40%, cutting June tonnage as much as 50% at some shafts: U.S. Smelting’s & Refining’s Midvale smelter is so short of ore that it is running at only two-thirds of capacity.

> In Arizona one shaft of Phelps Dodge’s Bisbee mine is short 200 men out of 450; the Miami-Globe copper-mining area needs 500 more men right away. Idaho, close to high-pay aircraft and shipbuilding jobs, needs 500-1,000 men more.

In actual numbers of men the mining manpower shortage is as small as it is big in results. To operate at capacity, the union estimated that the U.S. copper, lead and zinc mining industry right now needs 10% more than the 55,000 men it has.

Meanwhile copper continues so scarce that even the Army last week recognized the shortage, let WPB order curtailment of uniform insignia production in order to save perhaps 300 tons of copper a year (just over 1/100th of 1% of the U.S.’s expected copper supply this year).

*Last April the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that copper, lead and zinc smelting and refining workers averaged $35.18 a week while metal miners averaged $37.28. This compares with $40.22 for steel workers (before their recent wage boost), $45.94 for aircraft workers and $53.30 for shipbuilders.