Soft coal, hard choices : the economic welfare of bituminous coal miners, 1890-1930 / Price V. Fishback.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fishback, Price Van Meter, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Coal miners--United States--History.

Coal miners.

Bituminous coal industry--United States--History.

Bituminous coal industry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (292 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 frameworkencompasses 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 ofevents, and t

Contents:

Contents; 1. The Miners' Choices: Voice or Exit; 2. The Analytical Framework; The Implications of Competition; The Impact of Collective Action and Unions; Summary of Implications; 3. The Coal Labor Market, 1890-1930; Long-term Trends in the Coal Product Market; Exercising Voice Through the Union; Competition Among Employers for Labor; The Miners' Mobility; The Miners' Information; Summary; 4. Working in a Coal Mine; Tonnage Men; Daymen; Management; Rewards in the Occupational Hierarchy; 5. Methods of Wage Payment; Piece Rates, Time Rates, and Transactions Costs

Piece Rates and Quality ControlPiece Rates and Variation in Mine Conditions; Summary; 6. Dig Sixteen Tons and What Did You Get? Earnings; Why Become a Miner? High Hourly Earnings; Annual Earnings; The Worker's Choice; Trends in Real Earnings; Regional Comparisons Within Coal Mining; Summary; 7. Death's Taken a Mighty Toll for Coal, Coal, Coal; The Extent and Nature of Coal Accidents; Wages and Accident Rates; Unions and Safety; Government Regulation of Safety; Changes in Liability Laws; Compensation and Accident Prevention; Summary; 8. Did Coal Miners ""Owe Their Souls to the Company Store""?

The Limits on Store MonopolyWhy Did Companies Own Stores?; Store Prices; Were Miners Forced to Buy at the Store?; Conclusions; 9. The Company Town; The Nature of Company Housing; Why Did Companies Own Housing?; Monopoly Ownership?; The ""Necessity"" of Company Ownership; A Device to Prevent Collective Action; Model Towns; Sanitation in Coal Towns During the 1920s; Sanitation in Company Towns; Sanitation in Company versus Independent Towns; Conclusions; 10. Coal Mines as Melting Pots; The Geographic Location of Blacks and Immigrants; The Limited Nature of Discrimination in West Virginia

Wage Rates and EarningsDifferences in Workplace Safety; Positioning in the Job Hierarchy; The Impact of Competition on Segregated Schools; Housing Segregation; Segregation Across Mines; Black Workers in Alabama; Black Workers and the UMWA; Summary; 11. What Did Miners Gain from Strikes?; Strike Activity in Bituminous Coal Mining; Differences in Strike Activity Within the Coal Industry; The Pecuniary Gains and Losses from Strikes; Violence During Strikes; Conclusions; 12. Conclusions; Appendix A: Calculating Earnings for Workers in Coal Mining and Manufacturing; Annual Earnings

Hourly EarningsAppendix B: Sources of Data for Panel of Twenty-three Coal States from 1901 to 1930; Accident Rates; Coal Prices, Technological Variables, Strikes, Union Strength, and Mine Size; Wage Rates; Workers' Compensation Legislation; State Mining Legislation and Enforcement; Appendix C: Estimating the Relationship Between Wages and Accident Rates; Appendix D: A Theoretical Model of Accident Prevention by Miners and Employers; The Representative Miner; The Operator; Combining the Results; Appendix E: Measuring Segregation in Job Hierarchies

Appendix F: An Empirical Test of the Influence of Coal Companies on Equalizing Black and White Schools in West Virginia

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-536193-8

1-4237-6441-2

1-280-44073-2

1-60129-801-3

OCLC:

935260854