Unfaithful Followers

2018 ◽  
pp. 112-125
Author(s):  
Dana M. Caldemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Union Membership ◽  
Bituminous Coal ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Coal Production ◽  
Non Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Union Participation ◽  
United Mine Workers ◽  
United Mine ◽  
Mine Workers

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) had roughly 13,000 members when it called for a nationwide suspension in bituminous coal production in April 1894, but over 150,000 primarily non-union miners quit work in support of the UMW-orchestrated strike for better pay. Despite their longstanding hostility to UMW leaders and organizing tactics, miners in southern coalfields like Missouri and Kentucky were among the thousands to join the strike but not the union. This essay considers why laborers would follow the orders of a union they refused to join by considering the social and economic factors that shaped miners’ concepts of unionism. Ultimately, non-union participation in the 1894 coal strike demonstrated that non-unionism did not necessarily denote a rejection of union sentiment. Rather, workers could maintain a culture of faithfulness to union ideals even if they did not maintain union membership.

“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

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