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1112

(1944) [MARC] Author: Gunnar Myrdal
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Note: Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.

Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 11. Textile Workers - 12. Coal Miners

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III 2 An American Dilemma
ideology, one can scarcely expect the membership to accept major sacrifices in order to
help the Negro.“
12. Coal Miners
Bituminous coal mining,^ except for a temporary recovery during the present war
boom, has been a declining industry for the past few decades. This is due to over-
expansion during the First World War, mechanization, and increased use of fuel
substitutes, particularly oil and electricity. Nevertheless, the Negro is better off in this
occupation than in most others. Writing before the present war boom, Norgren says:
Considered as a source of employment, bituminous coal mining is decidedly a declining
industry. During the past two decades, the number of persons earning their livelihood in
this branch of economic activity has decreased by more than 200,000 or approximately
one third^j and there is little prospect of any reversal of the trend in the near future.
Despite this fact, there are good grounds for the contention that Negro coal miners
constitute one of the more favorably situated groups in the colored working-class world.
In the first place, while total employment has shrunk drastically, employment of Negroes
has decreased only to a minor extent. Secondly, the occupational status of the Negro coal
mine worker has always been, and still is, practically on par with that of the white
worker—a state of affairs almost unknown outside of this industry. And, finally, as we
have already intimated, he is afforded the protection of a union organization which
proclaims, and adheres to, a policy of full racial equality.®
In 1930 there were 58,000 Negro coal miners,** or 43 per cent more than in 1910,
whereas the number of white workers was about the same as in 1910. The bulk of the
Negro workers was in West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Most of
the Negro miners in Pennsylvania had come there after 1910, often as strike-breakers,
and since total employment in the Pennsylvania mines decreased between 1 910 and
1930, they had actually displaced some white workers. In spite of this northward migra-
tion, the number of Negro miners remained insignificant in the North. In no Northern
state did they constitute as much as 3 per cent of the labor force in the coal mines,
and about four-fifths of them were still in the South in 1930. Negroes had been able
to better their relative position because the Southern fields had gained much at the
expense of Northern mines (even to the extent of having more mine workers in 1930
than in 1920, whereas the country as a whole showed a loss in employment during
this period). The Southern mines had been unimportant around 1900, but by 1927
the coal production in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia alone temporarily sur-
passed that of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. These gains were partly due to
improvements in the transportation facilities in the South and to technical factors.
A third and very significant reason was the regional wage differential. The South, most
of the time, had nonunion labor, whereas Northern operators had to pay higher union
rates. As a result, the number of days worked per year was usually higher in the South
than in the North, where it dwindled to 130-140 days during the depressions of the
• Norgren and Associates, op, cit.. Part 3, pp. 270-271,
**
There are but few Negroes employed in anthracite coal mining,
® Norgren and Associates, op, cit,, Part 4, p. 396. Norgren’s reference () is to: National
Labor Relations Board, The Effect of Labor Relations in the Bituminous Coal Industr^t
upon Interstate Commerce (1938), Bulletin No. 2, p. 59.
* Anthracite coal mining included.

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