Company-Sponsored Welfare Plans in the Anthracite Industry before 1900

A recent survey by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce reported that so-called “fringe benefits” are now taking 16.4 per cent of the payrolls of American industry as a whole. Probably the best-known of these welfare programs is the United Mine Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund, which was started in May, 1946, by agreement between the union and the Department of the Interior, then operating the mines, and which was accepted by the operators when the industry returned to private hands. The Fund is financed by a royalty on every ton of coal produced. The royalty was originally 5 cents a ton, but it has risen every year until it is now 50 cents a ton. The revenues of the Fund up to June 30, 1952, were $476,000,000; its expenditures in the same period were $387,000,000. These disbursements went to finance several different types of benefits—pensions for retired miners, hospital and medical care, rehabilitation of the disabled, maintenance of men who were permanently and totally disabled, and death benefits and maintenance aid for miners' families. The Fund is administered by three trustees: one named by the United Mine Workers, one by the operators, and one designated jointly.