conclusion that we would go back and ask the coal company for a meeting, that is, of management, and ask them to give us some more time so we could earn a little bit more money and really provide for our families. I made an appointment with the mine superintendent for a meeting. He asked me what I wanted with the meeting. I said, "We will discuss that later in front of the body of men whom I represent as chairman." He arranged a meeting for us. We met with him. I said to him, "I only have one question to bring up and that is the question of us getting more time." He said, "Is that all?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I will consider it."

That was on a Tuesday morning. Wednesday and Thursday there was no work that week and naturally we did not work. It being the week before Christmas I was out of town. When I came in that evening at 8 o'clock my brother was waiting home and so was another gentleman and they told me I was fired. I said, "Why?" They said, "I don't know. The superintendent came up and told me not finding you at home not to come to work any more and that your services are no longer required."

I was fired for asking that question. The next day I was given an eviction notice to get out the house inside of 10 days. I also have that eviction notice. There was another gentleman fired with me who received the same notice because they figured he and I were the ring leaders.

The CHAIRMAN. What is his name?

Mr. MCALPINE. Robert Hockenberry. He was an assistant fore

man.

Mr. ARENDS. They figured you were the ring leaders of what?
Mr. MCALPINE. Of the meeting to come and demand more time.
Mr. FENTON. How many men were employed there?

Mr. MCALPINE. All of the men?

Mr. FENTON. Yes.

Mr. MCALPINE. At that time approximately 750 men. Right after that I went in front of the National Labor Relations Board and asked them what they can do about it because the superintendent had made statements that I was trying to start a union there. So when I went in and stated these facts to the National Labor Relations Board they said that I had no evidence that the company fired me for union activity and unless I could get further statements-I did in the meantime get more statements. After a 6 weeks' period of negotiations or talks between the Ford Collieries Co. and the National Labor Relations Board there was a conference arranged between the Board and the general manager, the mine foreman, and the superintendent to determine the cause or reason why I was fired. The superintendent admitted to the National Labor Relations Board that he had fired me because I had tried to start a union at that time.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the superintendent's name?
Mr. MCALPINE. C. W. Pollack.

At this meeting between the management of the mine and the National Labor Relations Board there was quite a discussion and the Board could not agree with the superintendent. So the general manager spoke up-he was the father of the superintendent. The general manager's name was A. R. Pollack and he said he would take charge of the meeting from then on and he agreed with the Na

tional Labor Relations Board to take us back to work and pay us for back time. Now, I was off of the work 6 weeks and for that 6 weeks' period I received the same pay as the men that were doing the same work as I was doing at that time and that had worked, and for that 6 weeks' period we received $136 as an executive of a coal company.

That brings me up to the starting point of this organization. When I went back to that mine I was told by the superintendent that I had been fired for starting the union. "You will watch your step from there on in." There was only one thing left to do. If I had been fired for starting the union I had to continue with that union or be fired again. Around those cole-mining communities any news such as that spreads and in only a matter of a few days committees came from different mines and wanted to join the organization, which in the meantime, we had no organization. We were just acting as an employee group at that mine. It was only a matter of a little time before we had a foremen's association and we named it the Mine Officials' Union of America. In the meantime we had been after our company for more work and they finally agreed to give us more work. We asked for a written agreement. We did not ask for a contract. We asked for a written agreement, they would put it up, and we would know what we were going to get for a period of time. The general manager could not agree to that. So we got in contact with the president of the company in Detroit, this being the Ford Collieries subsidiary of the Michigan Alkali which has offices in Wyandotte, Mich., rather than Detroit. We told them just what we wanted. We wanted to sit down and have an understanding so we would know what we were going to get in the future and so that they would not cut us overnight.

Mr. JOHNSON. May I ask a question? All this time was the mine working full time?

Mr. MCALPINE. No, sir. In the meantime we worked only what they were giving us. If they wanted to give us an extra day, we got it. If they did not want to give it to us we did not get it.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am talking about the miners. Did they work? Mr. MCALPINE. No, sir; we only got what the miners got.

Mr. THOMASON. Do you mean all the employees were out on strike? Mr. MCALPINE. No, no. There was no such thing as strike. It was just because there was a slow-down in the coal industry and there was no work.

The CHAIRMAN. The coal mine was not operting?

Mr. MCALPINE. That is right.

Mr. ARENDS. Could the company help it that they could not give you more work? Did they have orders for coal?

Mr. MCALPINE. That is not the idea so far as supervisory employees are concerned. Our duties are outlined by law that as long as one man goes in the mine that mine must be examined and there were men going in that mine every day and no examination was being made and they were making us stay at home. Our work was there continuously 6 and 7 days a week but they would not give it to us. Finally when we got them down from Detroit they came to agree they would put it down in black and white covering the supervisory employees. So far so good. We were satisfied.

But the neighboring company which operated three mines, the Union Collieries Co., would not sit down and talk to those employees. So that necessitated going back to the National Labor Relations Board, which we did, charging unfair labor practice. In the course of time the National Labor Relations Board ordered a hearing held in Pittsburgh. The Labor Board appointed a trial examiner to hear this case. After 3 days the case was over and the testimony of that hearing was sent to Washington. After considering the case down here in Washington they sent back to Pittsburgh for the representatives or the counsel of this organization notifying the Union Collieries that they were holding a hearing in this case. We came to Washington and gave testimony. So did the coal operators, and after about a 6 weeks' period the National Labor Relations Board granted us a decision recognizing us as a bona fide organization and certifying us for collective bargaining. The coal company still objected. They would not deal with these men. After a matter of time the State of Pennsylvania entered the case and asked to intervene and so did every coal association in America. And we had another hearing in Washington on August 3 of last year. After testimony was given by the State of Pennsylvania and all the coal associations, we were given one supplemental decision by a two to one vote which still granted us the right of collective bargaining, and still the coal company denied the right to talk to us which caused unrest in the coal industry because, in the meantime, our organization had been spreading on a voluntary basis. There was no paid member or paid official of our organization. It spread then at that time to practically all the coal counties in western Pennsylvania and also to northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio, and some parts of Alabama and Tennessee. And we demanded the right to be heard by the coal operators and the right to bargain collectively for our men, which we were entitled to, because up to that time they had just been slicing us whenever they wanted to and working us whenever they wanted to, or anything else.

Gentlemen, that was the formation of this organization.

I am appearing here against this Smith bill because it would take all those rights away from us. And, gentlemen, it is the opinion of our organization that we would like to see this thing stopped right here in this committee. I am appearing before you as President of the Mine Officials' Union of America and also as a coal miner; although I was a member of the Mine Officials' Union of America and as such occupied a supervisory position in the coal mine, nevertheless by no stretch of imagination do I consider myself as an executive nor any part of management of the coal mine. I began to work in the coal mines when I was 16 years of age and have worked there ever since. I have spent 24 years of my life in coal mines and I have done practically every type of work to be done in mines. I have worked on the engineer corps and I have been fire boss and part-time assistant foreman, but never have I been recognized by my employer as an executive or as a part of management. Management has never taken me into its confidence regarding their policy nor have I ever seen them do this with regard to any other supervisory employee doing similar work.

The Smith bill provides that the employer shall be responsible for

the supervisory employees. I would like to call your attention to the fact that approximately 65 percent of the supervisory employees in the coal mines are governed by the mining law of the State of Pennsylvania and for that reason he performs his duties in accordance with the State mining law. No employer, that is, no coal operator can assume or take away from the employee that responsibility because the employee thereupon becomes subject to prosecution by the State.

It has been the policy of the coal companies to use us as a buffer between management and the rank and file employees. During a dispute or during slack times or when any blunder or mistake was made by management we were used as a group upon whom the blame was placed and this was done without giving us a chance to answer. It has been stated that if we were allowed to organize into a union or to join a union that management will thereupon sit on both sides of the bargaining table. I firmly challenge that statement and I challenge any coal operator to point out when any of our men ever sat at the bargaining table representing management. Wage conferences between the coal operators and the United Mine Workers of America are now being held in New York City, and I therefore challenge anyone to prove that any man from our ranks is now present or was ever present representing management at the bargaining table. One of the largest coal companies in the country pays their supervisory employees on a sliding scale; for example if a mine works 6 days a week they get their salary, but if a mine works 4 days a week, they only receive 80 percent of their salary, and if a mine works only 3 days a week they only get 70 percent of their salary. Below that the company guarantees them $30 a week. The reason they guarantee that is very simple. If they pay below that $30 a week then those men come under the provision of the Wage-Hour Act and above 40 hours they would be entitled to time and a half, but the coal companies pay us $30 to keep us out of the provision and in that way work us as often and as long as they want to.

Another large coal company paid their supervisory employees salaries varying from $185 a month to $245 a month for the same work in the same mine. However, the men who really represent management in the coal mines do not get paid on this sliding scale and uncertain basis but they do get paid for a full week or a full month whether the mine works or not. I have in my possession statements to show that I as a supervisory employee received $22.05 for 2 weeks' work. Does that appear to be wages paid to executive or management employees? Does such a pay envelope indicate that that I must be considered as part of management? While receiving these wages a group of employees asked the coal operator for decent consideration and because I was the spokesman for the group of employees I was immediately discharged from my position. I appealed to the National Labor Relations Board in the sixth district in Pittsburgh, Pa., and through their intervention I was reemployed after being off for 6 weeks. I was paid $136 for that period, which is the same wage that other men received in the mine. Does that kind of pay envelope belong to an employee who is considered part of management?

Following my discharge and my petition with the Labor Board we banded ourselves into this union. the Mine Officials' Union of America, and only recently, after a great many difficulties, have we begun to realize the fruits and benefits of labor unions. We have always conducted our union in a decent and lawful manner and we have done everything possible to help and benefit our country and our employer in the production of coal. We regret very deeply that now that we have begun to enjoy the same privileges that the rank and file coal miner enjoys that this bill is now being introduced in Congress to take away from us these rights to which we are entitled under the Constitution of our country. Only recently were we able to get our employer to put us on a weekly or monthly basis rather than on a daily basis. Previously, the coal operator could discharge us at any time he wished and without any cause whatsoever. We do now and have always lived in company houses just as the rank and file coal miner does, and the company can and has evicted us from the premises within 10 days. All they have to do is show us a 10-days' eviction notice and out we go.

I told you about the cut we received in 1937. I told you my wages at that time were $230 a month and what I received the following month, or the month of December 1937, $48 for that month's work. And the company told us if we did not like it we could quit. At that time when we received those wages we appealed to the superintendent. He said, "Well, if you do not like it, fellows, you can quit." Mr. FENTON. Back in 1937 you got $8 a day?

Mr. MCALPINE. How is that?

Mr. FENTON. Back in 1937.

Mr. MCALPINE. In 1937 we were cut from a monthly salary to a day basis. At that time the superintendent made it very plain to us that we were not any part of management and we bore no relation to management and from that time on the only part of management they were going to employ by the month were the men they considered heads of their departments. And that is exactly what happened at my mine. That action was taken by our company and that action was taken by practically every coal company in that district. Mr. FENTON. When was that; what year?

Mr. MCALPINE. In November of 1937 was when we got laid off in the mine. And from then on up until a year ago we remained that way and through negotiation we carried out through this Mine Officials' Union, not as a union but as an employees' committee at each mine. Now, you may ask me the reason why we did not carry it out under the name of the Mine Officials' Union, but I will make it very plain that even after these two decisions by the National Labor Relations Board the coal companies refused to recognize us. But we did not care as long as we could get some achievement for these men we represented. We did not care whether it was through an employees' committee or whether the coal company ever recognized us as being a bargaining group.

Mr. JOHNSON. Did the company take an appeal from the decision of the Labor Board?

Mr. MCALPINE. This last one, the supplemental decision? No. Mr. JOHNSON. At the time they refused to recognize you after the certification, has the company taken an appeal?