kept confidential, as I think the act also requires. Then we received permission from Mr. Feder, to call the U.S. Senate to advise him or someone in the labor subcommittee office that such and such violation at such and such a mine was reported today to the Bureau of Mines. Then, of course, the subcommittee can implement whatever procedures it wishes to employ to make certain that that inspection was in fact done. But this has to be done in a black lung bulletin. It is not done by the organization, itself.

Senator WILLIAMS. I believe certain provisions have been made in general labor law which protects the workers where they want to educate the people in the shop or in the mill or in the mine by posting on the bulletin board provisions of applicable law that would be of interest. I believe that has been established. This is the sort of thing that I would think could be on the bulletin board.

Mr. YABLONSKI. If the language could be refined so that it is intelligible to a layman, that is the important thing, Senator.

Senator WILLIAMS. This is a readable and understandable law. That is one thing that I can say with accuracy. I was there when it was written; it can't be too obscure.

Mr. YABLONSKI. But that piece of legislation is awfully long.
Senator WILLIAMS. Section 110; subsection (b):

No person shall discharge or in any other way discriminate against, or cause to be discharged or discriminated against, any miner or any authorized representative of a miner by reason of the fact that such miner or representative has notified the Secretary

In other words, has complained of a violation of the law. That is pretty clear.

Mr. YABLONSKI. That may be part of the difficulty, that they don't know that they have the right to inform the Secretary and that, of course, is the condition to implementing that provision. Now, I am not certain-I hoped we would have Mr. Holland here today so that he could run down all the details of his firing. This, of course, is not anything new in the coal industry. It has been going on for years and it will continue to go on.

Mr. Holland went to district 6 and asked for help. They would not even meet with him. The men had to close the industry down in district 6 for 3 weeks and finally they caved in and reinstated him.

Senator WILLIAMS. It would be interesting to know whether any men have complained to the Department at any of its levels that they have been discriminated against or discharged because of complaints they might have filed under the law.

I will say this has taken some time. I think it is worthwhile. It seems to me that if this law is ultimately, and I hope sooner than has happened, to become effective, and if it is going to become fully effective, the miner himself is part of the enforcement procedure. It is important that he know it, that he be protected in his rights under the law.

Mr. YABLONSKI. We intend to, if possible, try to do just that, to get together in some publication or somewhere else, some collected set of safety advice as a result of this new legislation, as a result of the general principles of labor law.

One of the things that we hope to do as a result of the Pittsburgh litigation is just what the black lung bulletin did, to say that a com

pany has to litigate a safety record in the U.S. court before it can get an injunction stopping a safety strike.

We think that that is an important protection. All of these things, if we can codify them together in layman's language and something that is not particularly long, we think the miners themselves can enforce the act.

Senator WILLIAMS. I have just been advised that we have received a complaint from a coal miner that he was discharged because he took the examination to become a mine inspector, which seems fantastic. The first thing we can do is ask the Department about that, to look into that.

I would like to deal, if you can abbreviate it, with the nature of an inspection, your suggestion that a coal miner is a potentially well qualified mine inspector.

I gather there is some reservation about miners themselves becoming inspectors.

Mr. YABLONSKI. The basic problem, as I understand it, is that men have never been assured that they could stay essentially in their geographical area where they live. I think it is an outstanding trait of people who live in Appalachia that they want to stay where they were born and raised. Gentlemen in the coal industry with a number of dependents and everything else are reluctant, if they live in southern West Virginia to pack their bags to move to Illinois or Colorado or to Pennsylvania anthracite to go inspect mines. The Bureau, I think, over the years has offered the excuse that they didn't want a miner inspecting his own mine. I don't think that is any great problem. I think they could take the steps to insure that he didn't inspect his own mine, but I can't find anything that is particularly abhorrent in permitting a man to inspect a mine where he works.

This apparently has been one of the basic drawbacks. Of course, the union has never really encouraged people. As I said in the statement, they published a copy of the Bureau's notice of the open door examination, and I think the March 1 issue of the Mine Workers Journal all the open door exams concluded on March 2. That is not the way you go out and pull in miners from the industry.

Just this morning, talking with Mr. Patrick, and he is a young man who has many years of coal mining experience, quite obviously he is a very bright individual, quite obviously he is interested in the safety of coal miners, and he tells me that he certainly wouldn't mind being a mine inspector. It is like going into the ghetto to recruit black people. The Bureau has to go out and convince these people that they can take the exam, that they can pass the exam, that they can qualify and that they won't be shipped to Timbuctoo to inspect mines. With this terrible shortage, I don't see why they don't do it.

Mr. PATRICK. Senator Williams, could I say something on this matter of discharge?

Senator WILLIAMS. Certainly.

Mr. PATRICK. We had a man who left our mines-and I will give you his name and he will be glad to talk to you-he went to another mine and got a job bossing. He worked 1 week. He said from the tipple to the face he counted 33 violations, as many as I think 20 splices in a mining cable. He came back to our mines; he said the safety conditions there were too bad. This was at Eastern Gas & Fuel Mine. He sat

down and wrote a letter to John O'Leary. John O'Leary flooded that mine with inspectors. He went over it tooth and nail. Two weeks later John O'Leary was fired. If his job is not safe

Senator RANDOLPH. I just want to add, Mr. Patrick, that I was one Senator who is on the record as asking for the retention of Mr. O'Leary. That is a matter of record at the White House. We do the best we can.

Mr. PATRICK. Thank you.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Trbovich?

Mr. TRBOVICH. I would like to go back to the United States Steel mine, Maple Creek. This is a matter of record in the Federal court in Pittsburgh. They have 97 pumps in this mine and they don't have one man to man those pumps. These pumps are used to pump the water out of the escapeways, the working places. Ninety-seven pumps, no pumpers to pump this water out. It triggered a strike not too long ago because the escapeways were full of water and in case of fire or some other condition these people could not get out of that mine. Senator SCHWEIKER. How many men do you need to man the pumps?

Mr. TRBOVICH. It depends on where they are.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Give us some idea. In other words, we can't understand what you are saying unless you get specific, as was brought out earlier.

Mr. TRBOVICH. They are scattered all over the mine.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Do you need 97 men to man 97 pumps?

Mr. TRBOVICH. No; some of the pumps that are close, one man could watch five or six pumps, maybe 10. It depends on the location of the pumps because the Maple Creek Mine is a large mine and these 97 pumps are scattered throughout the mine.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Were the pumps not operating or operating without men?

on.

Mr. TRBOVICH. They are operating but the foremen throw the pumps

Senator SCHWEIKER. What does that mean?

Mr. TRBOVICH. Well, the foreman puts the power on to start the pumps to pump the water out. Sometimes they don't start the pumps and the water backs up. At some places you can pump all day and the water maintains the same level, it is hard to get the water out. If you fall back with 1 day not pumping you have a hard time catching up to get this water out. This was their complaint, like over the weekend it would back up over the haulageways and into the escapeways. When the safety committee made a run on the escapeways and the ventilation, they found that they could not get out of the escapeways because there was too much water. This thing was brought out in Federal court in Pittsburgh. It still is not settled and they still have no pumpers on these pumps.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Are there any provisions in your contract, labor agreement, about who mans the pumps?

Mr. TRBOVICH. Well, it is supposed to be people covered by the contract. There is one of the things that I wanted to mention. I think this is important. In most all of the coal companies the supervisory forces do contract work. Their job is to be at the immediate area where the coal is being mined. They are setting post in the air courses, hanging canvas, because in the section where the mining is being done there are

masses of cable, his job is to make sure that the ventilation is properly conducted. There are many things that the foreman must do to insure the safety of the people who are mining the coal. But the supervisory forces of all your coal companies do contract work and when they come out of the mine they are dirtier than the men who are supposed to be doing this work. This is one point that I wanted to bring out because I think this is the thing that is hurting a lot of our miners, the supervisory forces are negligent.

Mr. YABLONSKI. One of the things brought out in my discussion with these men, and they can talk about it better than anything else, is that, there is a poor guy that is caught in the middle that most people don't really know about and that is the section boss. He is an employee of the company but, boy, they ride him hard to get production.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Where does he fit in the structure of authority? Is he over the foreman, under the foreman?

Mr. TRBOVICH. The section foreman is the immediate supervisor on the section where the coal is being mined. Then there is a mine foreman, the general mine foreman that has the say over top of all the section foremen. Then you have a mine superintendent. The first thing that the mine foreman asks the assistant mine foreman when he comes out is "How many cars of production did you get?" This is what they talk about. If he gets only 30 wagons of coal, this is not too good. So, he has to get more coal. So when he goes into the mine in the first place the units are shorthanded. On a continuous miner you have five men mining coal. If one man is off, then this boss has to double up for him. He has to do a lot of his work because they don't have the extra men to go ahead and fill in. This is why I say at the Robena mine at that time we understand that the foreman was being paid a bonus for high production. This is one of the reasons why this happened there because the foreman was negligent, he was doing other work he should not have been doing instead of doing his work and checking the air, checking the conditions, and watching the massive cables in the mine at the time. This is being practiced throughout the industry. The Republic Steel Corp., I worked there for approximately 20 years, and the superintendent in a period of 4 or 5 years fired 53 bosses. This was all over production, because they could not produce coal, they could not get the coal. A lot of these foremen believed in safety. They believed in the safety of the miner but when he came out with 10 and 15 cars of coal he didn't last too long. They fired him.

This is one of the important things that has caused a lot of people to get hurt, that is causing unsafe conditions in the mines. They have no business doing this work. They are not covered by contract and our union doesn't take any position on it. Our union doesn't take a position on anything. The only thing that our union tells us when we go out on strike, "Go back to work." In the recent strike of June 21 the district. 4 president of the United Mine Workers got on the radioSenator WILLIAMS. This is the Pennsylvania strike?

Mr. TROBVICH. Right. Had an ad on the radio. "It is an unauthorized strike. Go to work.'

We were accused in the courtroom in Federal court of troublemakers and deceiving the court. We resented that because a safety issue was involved.

No one can tell a coal miner himself to go into a mine when he knows that it is not safe. This, I think, I stated in court. The district

organizers, the people who work for the United Mine Workers, went around, took all the names of the pickets, broke up our picket line. The U.S. marshal worked overtime. At midnight he had 72 subpenas to serve yet. Some people who are not even involved on this picket line were subpenaed.

In court the $40,000-a-year attorney of the United Mine Workers made a deal with the steel company attorneys that the injunction be placed on the local union and the men. In the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia this same $40,000-a-year attorney said that the mines were safe. And in Pittsburgh agreed with everything that the judge said and what the coal and steel companies had said. We pay this man his salary from our dues money, yet they make a deal with the steel company attorneys to place the injunction on the local union and the men when a safety issue is involved.

The safety issue that was involved was over the 200 hazardous mines which we got from the Bureau of Mines. The Miners for Democracy paid for the printing of this list. I think you are aware of the law which states that any mine liberating a hundred thousand cubic feet of methane is considered a hazardous mine.

In my area all the mines are hazardous. They not only produce hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of methane but millions at my mine alone, my mine liberates 4 million cubic feet of methane in one 24-hour shift.

Senator SCHWEIKER. On that point, on the methane mine, my amendment covered the inspections. What kind of on-the-spot inspections

Mr. TRBOVICH. Getting to that, Senator-in my area all the mines are considered hazardous that liberate millions of methane: Isabelle, National Mining Corp.; Mine 51, Bethlehem Steel Corp.; Mine 60, Bethlehem Corp.; Mine No. 4, Pittsburgh Coal; Westland, Pittsburgh Coal; Mathies Coal Co., Warwick, Duquesne Light, Warwick 3, Duquesne Light; Warwick No. 2, Duquesne Light; Vesta 4 and 5, J. & L. Senator WILLIAMS. Do we have that coal list that you prepared? Mr. YABLONSKI. Yes; it is in.

(The document referred to appears at p. 328.)

Mr. TRBOVICH. The strike of June 21 was because the Bureau of Mines was not enforcing the new mine safety bill which requires a spot inspection of all of these hazardous mines every 5 days. The Bureau themselves, Henry Wheeler in his office, admitted to myself and to Mr. Yablonski and several representatives from the West Virginia districts that they were not complying with that law.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Now they are claiming they are doing it once every 15 days. Are they hitting that schedule in your mines, once every 3 weeks?

Mr. TRBOVICH. Honestly I can't say, but I do know they are not inspecting every 5 days. This strike on June 21 was triggered by this lack of enforcement of the new mine safety bill. The union with the steel companies and the courts of the United States forced us back into the mines, which they had no right to do.

They have no right to force us in a coal mine when it is unsafe but they did. As I said before the district people, the United Mine Workers accused us as being troublemakers and deceiving the courts. This is the type of representation that we have.