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Anthracite Board of Conciliation Papers
The Anthracite Coal Strike Commission established the Board of Conciliation
under its fourth award on March 18, 1903. The Commission called for a "permanent
joint committee, to be called a Board of Conciliation" that would mediate grievances
or disputes "arising under this award, either as to its interpretation or
application" and which could not be settled at the mine. The joint committee was to
include three members representing a majority of mine workers and three members
representing the operators from each district in the anthracite industry. In instances
where the Board could not reach a decision, then the case would be referred to an umpire
appointed by a circuit judge from the third circuit of the United States. Any decision
made by either the Umpire or the Board was binding and final. Also, while a grievance was
in hearing suspension of work by either lockout or strike was not permitted. The decisions
rendered by the Board or Umpire were then considered common law for the anthracite
industry with past decisions acting as precedent for future settlements. As the Honorable
Judge George Gray, who served as an Umpire for the Board in the 1910's, suggested
"Great respect should be paid for former decisions ... a departure from views already
promulgated in former cases, should not be taken in subsequent cases."
The first meeting of the board took place on June 25, 1903 in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The structure of the Board was organized by appointing a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer. It was arranged that the chairman would be an operator representative and the secretary a mine worker representative. Two weeks after the initial meeting, the Board met to decide its first grievance in Pottersville, PA. With the creation of the Board of Conciliation many hoped years of peaceful labor-management relations would follow. As the Honorable Carroll D. Wright, first Umpire and member of the Coal Strike Commission, remarked in his decision in Grievance number 8 "the spirit of the Award of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission is not solely to carry out literally the Award, but to find some means by which peace and harmony
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