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North American labor union

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW or UMWA) is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. The UMW was founded in Columbus, Ohio, on January 25, 1890, with the merger of two old labor groups, the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Miners Union. Adopting the model of the union was initially established as a three pronged labor tool: to develop mine safety; to improve mine workers' independence from the mine owners and the company store; and to provide miners with collective bargaining power. After passage of the National Recovery Act in 1933 during the Great Depression, organizers spread throughout the United States to organize all coal miners into labor unions. Under the powerful leadership of John L. Lewis, the UMW broke with the American Federation of Labor and set up its own federation, the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). Its organizers fanned out to organize major industries, including automobiles, steel, electrical equipment, rubber, paint and chemical, and fought a series of battles with the AFL. The UMW grew to 800,000 members and was an element in the New Deal Coalition supporting Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lewis broke with Roosevelt in 1940 and left the CIO, leaving the UMW increasingly isolated in the labor movement. During World War II the UMW was involved in a series of major strikes and threatened walkouts that angered public opinion and energized pro business opponents. After the war, the UMW concentrated on gaining large increases in wages, medical services and retirement benefits for its shrinking membership, which was contending with changes in technology and declining mines in the East.

An eight hour work day was gained in 1898. The first ideas of this demand were outlined in point six of the constitution. The union achieved collective bargaining rights in 1933.

The union's history has numerous examples of strikes in which members and their supporters clashed with company hired strikebreakers and government forces. The most notable include:

Morewood massacre – April 3, 1891, in Morewood, Pennsylvania. A crowd of mostly immigrant strikers were fired on by deputized members of the 10th Regiment of the National Guard. At least ten strikers were killed and dozens injured. Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike of 1894 – April 21, 1894. This nationwide strike was called when the union was hardly four years old. Many of the workers salaries had been cut by 30%
1908 Alabama coal strike – June–August 1908. Notable because the 18,000 UMWA organized strikers, more than half of those working in the Birmingham District, were racially integrated. That fact helped galvanize political opposition to the strikers in the segregated state. The governor used the Alabama State Militia to end the work stoppage. The union adopted racial segregation of workers in Alabama in order to reduce the political threat to the organization. Westmoreland County Coal Strike – 1910–1911, a 16 month coal strike in Pennsylvania led largely by Slovak immigrant miners, this strike involved 15,000 coal miners. Sixteen people were killed during the strike, nearly all of them striking miners or members of their families. Colorado Coalfield War – September 1913–December 1914. A frequently violent strike against the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Colorado Fuel and Iron company. Many strikers and opposition were killed before the violent reached a peak following the April 20, 1914 Ludlow Massacre. An estimated 20 people, including women and children, were killed by armed police, hired guns, and Colorado National Guardsmen who broke up a tent colony formed by families of miners who had been evicted from company owned housing. The strike was partially led by John R. Lawson, a UMWA organizer and saw the participation of famed activist Mother Jones. The UMWA purchased part of Ludlow site and constructed the Ludlow Monument in commemoration of those who died. Hartford coal mine riot – July 1914. The surface plant of the Prairie Creek coal mine was destroyed, and two non union miners murdered by union miners and sympathizers. The mine owners sued the local and national organizations of the United Mine Workers Union. The national UMWA was found not complicit, but the local was judged culpable of encouraging the rioters, and made to pay US$2.1 million. United Mine Workers coal strike of 1919 – November 1, 1919. Some 400,000 members of the United Mine Workers went on strike on November 1, 1919, although Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer had invoked the Lever Act, a wartime measure criminalizing interference with the production or transportation of necessities, and obtained an injunction against the strike on October 31. The coal operators smeared the strikers with charges that Russian communist leaders Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press repeated those claims. Matewan, West Virginia – May 19, 1920. 12 men were killed in a gunfight between town residents and the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency, hired by mine owners. Director John Sayles directed a feature film, Matewan, based on these events. The 'Redneck War' – 1920–21. Generally viewed as beginning with the Matewan Massacre, this conflict involved the struggle to unionize the southwestern area of West Virginia. It led to the march of 10,000 armed miners on the county seat at Logan. In the Battle of Blair Mountain, miners fought state militia, local police, and mine guards. These events are depicted in the novels Storming Heaven (1987) by Denise Giardina and Blair Mountain (2005) by Jonathan Lynn. 1920 Alabama coal strike, a lengthy, violent, expensive and fruitless attempt to achieve union recognition in the coal mines around Birmingham left 16 men dead; one black man was lynched. 1922 UMW General coal strike, On April 1, 1922, 610,000 mine workers struck nationwide, shutting down the majority of operations within the country. Herrin massacre occurred in June 1922 in Herrin, Illinois. 19 strikebreakers and 3 union miners were killed in mob action between June 21–22, 1922.

In the 1920s, about 12,000 Nova Scotia miners were represented by the UMWA. These workers lived in very difficult economic circumstances in company towns. The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation, also known as the British Empire Steel Corporation, or BESCO, controlled most coal mines and every steel mill in the province.

Diana Baldwin and Anita Cherry are believed to have been the first women to work inside an American coal mine, and were the first women to work inside a mine who were members of the UMW. They began that work in 1973 in Jenkins, Kentucky. However, more pervasive were hiring practices discriminatory against women. The superstition that a woman even entering a mine was bad luck and results in disaster was pervasive among male miners. In 1978 a discrimination complaint was filed by the Coal Employment Project, a women's advocacy organization, against 153 coal companies. This action was based upon Executive Order 11246 signed in 1965 by U. S. President Lyndon Johnson, which bars sex discrimination by companies with federal contracts. The complaint called for the hiring of one woman for every three inexperienced men until women constituted 20 percent of the workforce. This legal strategy was successful. Almost 3,000 women were hired by the close of 1979 as underground miners. However, a general decline in union effectiveness characterized the 1970s and 1980s, leading to new kinds of activism, particularly in the late 1970s. Workers saw their unions back down in the face of aggressive management. Other factors contributed to the decline in unionism generally and UMW specifically. The coal industry was not prepared economically to deal with such a drop in demand for coal. Demand for coal was very high during World War II, but decreased dramatically after the war, in part due to competition from other energy sources. In efforts to improve air quality, municipal governments started to ban the use of coal as household fuel. The end of wartime price controls introduced competition to produce cheaper coal, putting pressure on wages. The UMW leadership was part of the driving force to change the way workers were organized, and the UMW was one of the charter members when the new Congress of Industrial Organizations was formed in 1935. However, the AFL leadership did not agree with the philosophy of industrial unionization, and the UMW and nine other unions that had formed the CIO were kicked out of the AFL in 1937. In 1942, the UMW chose to leave the CIO, and, for the next five years, were an independent union. In 1947, the UMW once again joined the AFL, but the remarriage was a short one, as the UMW was forced out of the AFL in 1948, and at that point, became the largest non affiliated union in the United States. In 1982, Richard Trumka was elected the leader of the UMW. Trumka spent the 1980s healing the rift between the UMW and the now conjoined AFL–CIO (which was created in 1955 with the merger of the AFL and the CIO). In 1989, the UMW was again taken into the fold of the large union umbrella. He finished second in the riding of Pincher Creek. The biggest conflict between the UMW and the government was while Franklin Roosevelt was president of the United States and John L. Lewis was president of the UMW. Originally, the two worked together well, but, after the 1937 strike of United Automobile Workers against General Motors, Lewis stopped trusting Roosevelt, claiming that Roosevelt had gone back on his word. This conflict led Lewis to resign as CIO president. Roosevelt repeatedly won large majorities of the union votes, even in 1940 when Lewis took an isolationist position on Europe, as demanded by far left union elements. Lewis denounced Roosevelt as a power hungry war monger, and endorsed Republican Wendell Willkie. The tension between the two leaders escalated during World War II. Roosevelt in 1943 was outraged when Lewis threatened a major strike to end anthracite coal production needed by the war effort. He threatened government intervention and Lewis retreated. The UMW represents West Virginia coal miners and endorsed Joe Manchin (D W. Va.) in the 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia. In 2021 the union urged him to revisit his opposition to President Biden's Build Back Better Plan, noting that the bill includes an extension of a fund that provides benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung disease, which expires at the end of the year. The UMWA also touted tax incentives that encourage manufacturers to build facilities in coalfields that would employ thousands of miners who lost their jobs.

In 2008 the UMWA supported Barack Obama as the best candidate to help achieve more rights for the mine workers. In 2012, the UMWA National COMPAC Council did not make an endorsement in the election for President of the United States, citing "Neither candidate has yet demonstrated that he will be on the side of UMWA members and their families as president." In 2014, the UMWA endorsed Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes for U. S. Senate. In 2023, the UMWA endorsed Democrat Andy Beshear for the 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election.