Soft Coal, Hard Choices The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930

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ISBN: 9780195067255 | 0195067258
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 5/28/1992

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While most studies of labor in the coal industry focus on the struggle to organize unions, this work offers a more diverse and quantitative examination of the labor market. It regards the economic lives of the bituminous coal miners in the early twentieth century. Fishback's analytic framework encompasses competition among employers for labor, the legal environment, institutional development in response to transactions costs as well as the impact of labor unions on the coal industry. Utilizing economic theory and statistics, Fishback reveals the models hidden in the descriptions of events, and then tests their internal consistency as well as the hypotheses they generate.

The Miners' Choices: Voice or Exit	p. 3
The Analytical Framework	p. 11
The Implications of Competition	p. 11
The Impact of Collective Action and Unions	p. 14
Summary of Implications	p. 16
The Coal Labor Market, 1890-1930	p. 19
Long-term Trends in the Coal Product Market	p. 19
Exercising Voice Through the Union	p. 23
Competition Among Employers for Labor	p. 25
The Miners' Mobility	p. 27
The Miners' Information	p. 31
Summary	p. 35
Working in a Coal Mine	p. 42
Tonnage Men	p. 42
Daymen	p. 45
Management	p. 47
Rewards in the Occupational Hierarchy	p. 49
Methods of Wage Payment	p. 60
Piece Rates, Time Rates, and Transactions Costs	p. 60
Piece Rates and Quality Control	p. 65
Piece Rates and Variation in Mine Conditions	p. 68
Summary	p. 73
Dig Sixteen Tons and What Did You Get? Earnings	p. 79
Why Become a Miner? High Hourly Earnings	p. 80
Annual Earnings	p. 83
The Worker's Choice	p. 84
Trends in Real Earnings	p. 88
Regional Comparisons Within Coal Mining	p. 91
Summary	p. 97
Death's Taken a Mighty Toll for Coal, Coal, Coal	p. 102
The Extent and Nature of Coal Accidents	p. 102
Wages and Accident Rates	p. 108
Unions and Safety	p. 111
Government Regulation of Safety	p. 112
Changes in Liability Laws	p. 118
Compensation and Accident Prevention	p. 120
Summary	p. 125
Did Coal Miners "Owe Their Souls to the Company Store"?	p. 133
The Limits on Store Monopoly	p. 134
Why Did Companies Own Stores?	p. 135
Store Prices	p. 136
Were Miners Forced to Buy at the Store?	p. 141
Conclusions	p. 147
The Company Town	p. 152
The Nature of Company Housing	p. 152
Why Did Companies Own Housing?	p. 155
Monopoly Ownership?	p. 155
The "Necessity" of Company Ownership	p. 157
A Device to Prevent Collective Action	p. 159
Model Towns	p. 161
Sanitation in Coal Towns During the 1920s	p. 161
Sanitation in Company Towns	p. 163
Sanitation in Company versus Independent Towns	p. 164
Conclusions	p. 165
Coal Mines as Melting Pots	p. 171
The Geographic Location of Blacks and Immigrants	p. 172
The Limited Nature of Discrimination in West Virginia	p. 176
Wage Rates and Earnings	p. 176
Differences in Workplace Safety	p. 178
Positioning in the Job Hierarchy	p. 179
The Impact of Competition on Segregated Schools	p. 184
Housing Segregation	p. 186
Segregation Across Mines	p. 188
Black Workers in Alabama	p. 190
Black Workers and the UMWA	p. 190
Summary	p. 191
What Did Miners Gain from Strikes?	p. 198
Strike Activity in Bituminous Coal Mining	p. 199
Differences in Strike Activity Within the Coal Industry	p. 203
The Pecuniary Gains and Losses from Strikes	p. 205
Violence During Strikes	p. 212
Conclusions	p. 215
Conclusions	p. 221
Calculating Earnings for Workers in Coal Mining and Manufacturing	p. 225
Annual Earnings	p. 225
Hourly Earnings	p. 226
Sources of Data for Panel of Twenty-three Coal States from 1901 to 1930	p. 234
Accident Rates	p. 234
Coal Prices, Technological Variables, Strikes, Union Strength, and Mine Size	p. 235
Wage Rates	p. 236
Workers' Compensation Legislation	p. 237
State Mining Legislation and Enforcement	p. 238
Estimating the Relationship Between Wages and Accident Rates	p. 242
A Theoretical Model of Accident Prevention by Miners and Employers	p. 250
The Representative Miner	p. 251
The Operator	p. 253
Combining the Results	p. 254
Measuring Segregation in Job Hierarchies	p. 256
An Empirical Test of the Influence of Coal Companies on Equalizing Black and White Schools in West Virginia	p. 262
Piece Rate Regressions for West Virginia Counties	p. 266
Index	p. 271
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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Soft Coal, Hard Choices The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930

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