UNITED MINE WORKERS (UMW)

Organized in 1890, the United Mine Workers (UMW) is a labor union founded as an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). By the late 1880s, Midwestern mine owners were grossly exploiting workers, including numerous immigrants: conditions in the mines ranged from deplorable to dangerous, wages had dropped by as much as 20 percent, and mining families lived in squalor. During its first decade, the UMW came under the leadership of Illinois native John Mitchell (1870–1919). (Mitchell had begun working in coal mines at age twelve and was a member of the Knights of Labor (1885–1890), before joining the UMW and quickly ascending its ranks.) As president of the union after 1898, Mitchell undertook a massive organization drive, espousing the gospel of unionism and the dignity of man. Through Mitchell's efforts, diverse workers became the unified front of the UMW and a force to be reckoned with. In the early 1900s the UMW staged a series of successful strikes, calling attention to unfair labor practices and resulting in increased wages, reduced hours, and improved conditions. Mitchell became a national hero. He suffered health problems and was replaced as leader of the UMW in 1906.

For the next two decades, the coal industry was marked by increased competition; the UMW's tactics became radical. During the 1910s, a series of coal strikes were marked by violence, ending in the deaths of workers as well as government officials. In 1922 U.S. coal miners stages a six-month long strike to protest wage cuts. The massive demonstration paralyzed American industry and began a period of chronic depression in the coal mining industry. What resulted was cutthroat competition, which further hurt the cause of the workers.

The Great Depression (1929–1939), the severe economic downturn of the 1930s, saw the country's laborers joining unions in great numbers, particularly boosting the memberships of industrial (versus craft) unions such as the UMW. In 1935 dynamic UMW leader John Llewellyn Lewis (1880–1969) worked with other industrial unions to form an alliance, the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). The UMW's parent organization, the AFL, which was founded on the principles of craft unions, expelled the UMW and other CIO activists, who reorganized as the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In the 1940s the unions again became controversial: A UMW strike in 1946 stopped soft coal production, then the nation's primary source of energy. The strike severely impacted the steel and automotive industries, the rail service, and the average American, as people in twenty-two states were required to observe "dim-outs" to conserve coal. Consumers faulted the unions for shortages of consumer goods, suspension of services, and inflated prices.

Passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) limited the impact of unions. The UMW has remained active on the national labor scene since its founding, though it struggled through controversy again in the 1970s when its leadership was found to be corrupt.