Strained Solidarities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan T. McNeil
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Mountaintop Removal ◽  
Union President ◽  
United Mine Workers ◽  
United Mine ◽  
Mine Workers

This chapter examines the dramatic changes within the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)—once the most powerful force in American organized labor. By the end of the twentieth century, the UMWA seemed incapable of organizing nonunion mines, even in the region that once provided its strongest support. Over its lifetime, the UMWA has moved through three distinct eras: confrontational organizing, labor brokerage, and crisis management. John L. Lewis' legacy as union president transformed the union from a fractured organizing body to a streamlined labor broker, negotiating contracts and winning the best possible wages and benefits. However, in Coal River, the community and environmental activism of the late 1990s emerged as a challenge to the leadership of the UMWA, this time demanding a strong stance against mountaintop removal.

“Judases”

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-92
Keyword(s):  
Gilded Age ◽  
Local Union ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Union Decline ◽  
United Mine Workers ◽  
United Mine ◽  
Mine Workers

Chapter 3 examines the reasons that caused workers to leave or reject unions. Scholars normally associate union decline with workers disillusion with unionism. This chapter, however, argues that workers’ faith in unionism did not waver as much as their faith in union leaders did. As Gilded Age unions like the United Mine Workers implemented a more centralized hierarchy, local union autonomy waned. As a result, workers doubted whether union leaders made decisions with the workers’ interests in mind, and they left the union when it seemed their leaders went astray. Rather than abandoning unionism altogether, however, many of these individuals formed local unions that rivaled the national unions, indicating that workers had more problems with union leadership than they did with unionism itself.

Outsiders

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-118
Keyword(s):  
White Women ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Immigrant Workers ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Highly Skilled ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
United Mine Workers ◽  
United Mine ◽  
Mine Workers

This chapter discusses the problems within unions that caused union leadership to treat members differently from one another. It argues that although union leaders often claimed the unions were open to all races and ethnicities, the efforts they pursued favored white laborers over people of color. Stereotypes that associated black miners with strikebreaking and construed non-English-speaking immigrant miners as unintelligent and unskilled cast a shadow over union procedures and the laws unions fought to secure. Even though farmers and white women had less experience in the mines, these individuals were welcomed far more readily than black and immigrant workers who were often highly skilled in the mining trades. In the end, the exclusivity practiced by organizations like the United Mine Workers alienated nonwhite and non-English-speaking workers, giving these groups little reason to join union ranks

Jones, Mary Harris “Mother”

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne "Rocky" Delaplaine
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Union Organizer ◽  
Working People ◽  
United Mine Workers ◽  
United Mine ◽  
Mine Workers

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (1830–1930) was a union organizer for the United Mine Workers of America and was known for her tireless efforts to improve the lives of working people and raising public awareness of the issues of child labor.

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