United Mine Workers history

The creation of the UMW Journal in February 1891 provided an effective way to trade information.

At the 1892 convention, Rae refused to run for reelection after learning that the miners were not ready for another concerted drive for shorter work hours.

The UMWA sank to its worst level in 1893 when a depression hit the United States.

About 100,000 men stopped work on 21 April 1894, and eventually 180,000 of the country's 193,000 bituminous coal miners joined the stoppage.

In 1896 a disheartened Penna resigned to become labor commissioner for the Indiana coal operators.

Because wage rates continued to decline as the country barely returned to economic normalcy, Ratchford called a national strike for miners on 4 July 1897.

Due to the large membership in the United Mine Workers, in 1898, many mine owners agreed to the unions demand of an eight-hour workday.

1900: Establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Craftsmen who worked indirectly in and around the mines, such as blacksmiths, could disrupt the work of the miners when they struck. As a result, the UMWA adopted a policy called the Scranton Declaration of December 1901 by which the union was able to organize all workers in and around the mines.

The mine owners, for the first time, collectively recognized the UMWA. It was at this conference (and at another one in 1902 during Mitchell's tenure) that collective bargaining became an accepted principle in the coal mining regions of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania.

He suffered health problems and was replaced as leader of the UMW in 1906.

Imagine you are a coal miner in 1907, working hundreds of feet below the surface of the ground.

In the coal-mining town of Panama, Illinois, he became head of a United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) local, and in 1911 he became an organizer for the American Federation of Labor (AFL), with which the miners’ union was affiliated.

In November 1919, the driving force and powerhouse for the labor movement, John L. Lewis, became President of the UMWA and remained President for 40 years.

In 1921, 7,000 striking miners led by Bill Blizzard met at Marmet for a march in Logan County to organize southern coalfields represented by the UMWA. The Battle of Blair was a five-day-long battle.

In 1922 United States coal miners stages a six-month long strike to protest wage cuts.

Miner’s Memorial Day, also known as Davis Day, was created in honor of William Davis, who was shot and killed during a long strike by the province’s coal miners against the British Empire Steel Corporation on June 11, 1925.

In February 1931, a strike in Harlan County, Kentucky between the UMWA and coal operators resulted in a bloody coal-field war.

The UMWA-supported Democratic Party has controlled the state legislature since Roosevelt was first elected in 1932.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal finally turned the tide and allowed the UMWA to organize Mingo, McDowell and other counties in 1933.

Beginning in 1935–36, Lewis presided over the often-violent struggle to introduce unionism into previously unorganized industries such as steel, automobile, tire, rubber, and electrical products.

As a consequence of his success, the UMWA formed the backbone of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labour support in the 1936 presidential election.

In 1942 he pulled the UMWA out of the parent body.

Following Lewis's death in 1959, the United Mine Workers entered a period of internal turmoil and in fighting.

After retiring as UMWA president in 1960, he served as chairman of the board of trustees of the UMWA’s welfare and retirement fund.

The creation of the Mine Act occurred in 1968 when a mine exploded at Consolidated Coal’s Farmington #9 Mine killing 78 miners.

The MFD won control of the union in 1972 and began a legacy of reform in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

In 1974, one president of the United Mine Workers, W.A. Boyle was arrested and convicted of ordering the murder of one of his union opponents, Joseph A. Yablonski.

New York: Four Winds Press, 1977.

The first selective strike in the history of the UMWA occurred in 1978 after a 110-day long coal strike.

Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields.Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Richard Trumka restored a degree of order and democracy to the UMWA upon his election to the presidency in 1982.

To enhance its voice, the United Mine Workers joined the AFL-CIO in 1989.

In 1990, fierce fighter of working-class rights and United States Army veteran, Cecil E. Roberts, becomes the 15th President of the UMWA.

The union had hoped to regain members and influence by calling a lengthy strike in 1993 to protest the opening of nonunion mines, but the unsuccessful strike against the Bituminous Coal Operators Association further weakened the image of the UMWA.

It is known as the Pittston Strike and its 30th anniversary was celebrated in June 2019.