Foreign News: Minimum for Miners

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Among the several causes of Britain's menacing coal shortage (TIME, June 15) have been low mining wages. Thousands of miners have left the pits for better-paying defense jobs. Strikes have been frequent among miners whose sisters often make more in munitions factories than the brothers do digging coal.

The new Ministry of Fuel, Light & Power, which has just begun trying to manage coal efficiently for the duration, has no power over wages. But last week the Mineworkers' Federation (union) accepted from an independent tribunal the first national minimum wage in the history of British coal: $16.60 per week.

This was 40¢ less than the miners had demanded. But the acceptance augured an improvement in mining morale and production, set an important precedent for Britain's huge mining population of close to 3,000,000 (miners and their families).