In 1920 for the duration of about a month the anthracite coal districts were shut down due to strikes. On August 28th an estimated 175,000 miners were on strike and to represent these minors, three hundred delegates went to Pennsylvania to demand that President Wilson raise their wages.1 President Wilson approved and the wages for the minors pay increased from 17 cents to 20 cents an hour. With this approval it was understood that the union would request that the minors return and they did but not all minors returned believing that they should have been given more. The first week after the end of the strike over 100,000 minors still refused to go back to work. On average the company lost about $650,000 a day.2 By the end of the month most of the workers had returned to the mines. President Wilson then announced that wage negotiations would not be brought up again and that striking would be a violation of their current contracts. Wilson tried to remind them that our country had just fought a war and that sacrifices had to be made.
1 "The Hard Coal Strike." 1920.The Independent ...Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), Oct 02, 17. http://search.proquest.com/docview/90006327?accountid=10351.
2 "The Hard Coal Strike." 1920.The Independent ...Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), Oct 02, 17. http://search.proquest.com/docview/90006327?accountid=10351.
1 "The Hard Coal Strike." 1920.The Independent ...Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), Oct 02, 17. http://search.proquest.com/docview/90006327?accountid=10351.
2 "The Hard Coal Strike." 1920.The Independent ...Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), Oct 02, 17. http://search.proquest.com/docview/90006327?accountid=10351.