Darkness in the Coal Country

Across the broad heartland of the U.S., the lights began going out. Columbus switched off its street lamps indefinitely, and Governor James A. Rhodes ordered many state facilities to cut the use of electricity by 25%. Pittsburgh department stores dimmed their lights in daytime, shut down their display windows at night and scheduled a 30% cut in business hours this week. Officials in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana urged residents to forgo hair dryers, dishwashers and other appliances. Utilities that once boasted of 100-day fuel stockpiles watched anxiously as their supplies dwindled to emergency levels.

The darkening landscape was the result of the epic coal strike that began Dec. 6. By week's end, the walkout by 165,000 members of the United Mine Workers, who mine about half the nation's coal, had surpassed the 59-day record set by U.M.W. strikers in 1946.

More emergency measures lay ahead. Three huge power companies serving almost 2 million customers in five states --Duquesne Light Co., the Allegheny Power System, Inc., and the Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Co.--plan to ask for an end to all outdoor lighting and evening sports events plus a cutback of retail business schedules. If the strike extends into next week, the companies are prepared to slice industrial electricity usage to between 50% and "maintenance level," which would force the shutdown of many factories. To stave off further shortages, companies were beginning to import power from outside energy grids; some were trying to bring in nonunion coal but were hampered by both snow and miners' pickets.

The people most directly afflicted by the strike, of course, were the miners themselves. Eking out their days without strike benefits, the U.M.W. members had already lost their medical insurance coverage, which is based on coal production and which therefore lapsed when the strike began. Last week 180,600 retired miners who live on the U.M.W.'s 1950 pension plan lost their monthly pension checks averaging up to $250 because the retirement fund had dried up.

Worst hit by the prolonged walkout were young miners with families. Jerold Hamrick, a 34-year-old worker with a wife and four children in Kelley's Creek Hollow near Charleston, W. Va., lives on what's left of the meat he stored in his freezer before the strike. Said he: "The miners know they're hurting, but they've suffered this long so they're gonna stick it out." Some other exasperated U.M.W. members warned of coming violence, and one picket died last week in a clash between strikers and nonunion miners in Petersburg, Ind.

Said Dave Reid, 25, in Mount Clare, Ill., whose wife had a baby girl in January and who has no money or health insurance to cover the $2,500 hospital bill: "Yeah, there's gonna be some shootin'. All I know is that somebody's got to do something because I'm hurtin' and so are a lot of other people."

But since stockpiles had sunk dangerously and the strike had become widely felt (estimated cost to West Virginia in taxes alone: $500,000 per day), many miners believed they had more leverage. "Now we got some bargaining power," said one. "The men are not going to be snowballed into a contract this time."

The basic decision lay in Washington, where the U.M.W. at week's end was studying the latest contract proposals from the mine operators. The main terms: a wage boost of more than 30% over three years and a guarantee of health and pension benefits in exchange for a union labor stability agreement. Some observers predicted that a settlement was imminent, but even if it did come soon, U.M.W. members would still need ten days or more to ratify the contract, and that ratification was by no means certain.

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