Canada: NOVA SCOTIA: Of Mines & Men

A new era was dawning in Cape Breton Island’s long-troubled coalfields. Most of the old bitterness between management and labor was gone, and they were working together to increase production. (Only two years ago, a Royal Commission had reported: “The men … so distrusted the present management that they could see no hope for … cooperation between men and management in improving the efficiency of production.”)

In Truro last week, the annual convention of District 26, United Mine Workers of America, drew up its demands for 1949 wages. First & foremost was a whopping general increase of $2.56 a day over the present $7.64 basic rate. There were also carefully scaled demands for men who work at the coal face. Explained one union official: “It’s a new type of policy we’ve adopted, with emphasis on the actual production of coal at the face . . . It’s all bent towards increased production for the industry.”

The Dominion Coal Co.* could be expected to do some hard bargaining before granting any such increases, and would probably tie them to production boosts. Two years ago, Dosco’s miners were digging only 1.6 tons of coal per man-day (against 6.3 in the U.S.). Two weeks ago, Dosco reported that June production was up to 2.53 tons—near the prewar peak —and still rising toward a goal of 4.5 tons in 1953. Much of the increase is due to mechanization, which the miners once fought, now support.

Under the Sea. Typical of the new-day miners who have striven to boost production is John MacPherson, who lives in an eight-room house in Villa Nova outside Glace Bay. Last week “Tossy” MacPherson, father of seven girls and a boy, was on the night trick. He slept until midday, had a noon meal and then, carrying his supper in a lunch box, walked a quarter-mile to Dosco’s Sydney & Louisburg Railway to catch the “Hobo,” a work-train of boxcars fitted with benches.

The Hobo took Tossy to the washhouse of No.1B mine. Changed into pit clothes, he walked across to the shafthead, only 55 ft. from the Atlantic shore, and rode 670 ft. down in a coal cage in less than a minute. Because the seams run far under Glace Bay, Tossy’s Orphean journey was just beginning. Next came a long ride in a motor rake (a train of coal cars pulled by an electric locomotive) to a point 1,800 ft. below the sea bed. Then, on the No. 6 incline rake (a cable car), Tossy rode 6,000 ft. down a 12° grade. Finally, he walked a quarter-mile to the coal face, four miles out under the sea. It was two hours since he had left home.

At the Face. Tossy’s usual job is boring the coal to receive dynamite charges. Some days he works as a loader, heaving coal with a pan shovel (like an oversized soup spoon) onto a shaker conveyor. By working two overtime shifts, he grosses about $80 a week, but income tax, union dues and other check-offs leave him only $55 take-home pay.

The delegates at Truro, representing 13,000 miners, wanted face workers like Tossy to make as much in five shifts as they now make in seven. This might be possible, if production goes up fast enough. Although District 26 has agreed to mechanization, it still wants assurance that there will be jobs for the men laid off—preferably new jobs created by the development of new industries, especially steel products, in the Sydney area.

* The principal mine-operating subsidiary of Dominion Steel & Coal Corp. Ltd. (“Dosco”), which controls 90% of Nova Scotia’s coal pro duction, besides the steel plant at Sydney, where iron ore from Newfoundland is reduced.