United Mine Workers - Strikes Throughout The UMW History

Strikes Throughout The UMW History

The union's history is filled with examples of members and their supporters violently clashing with company-hired strikebreakers and government forces:

• Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike of 1894 - April 21, 1894. This nationwide strike called when the union was hardly four years old. Many of the workers salaries had been cut by 30% and with the demand for coal down, workers were upset that there were not more opportunities for work. The national guard was mobilized in several states to prevent or control violent clashes between strikers and strike breakers. The workers intended on only striking from work for three weeks in the hopes that when they returned the demand for coal would increase as would their wages. They developed the plan that they would continue to strike for three weeks and return to work for a short period of time until the hopes of wages increasing turned into a reality. However, many miners in the union did not wish to cooperate with this plan and did not return to work at all. This made the union seem weak. While many refused to return to work, many workers did not strike at all, and with the demand for coal being so low the remaining workers were able to produce enough to satisfy the demand. By being efficient in the mines, the operators saw no need to increase the wages of all the workers, and did not seem to care if the strike would end. By June the demand for coal began to increase and some operators decided to pay the works their original salaries before the wage cut. However, not all demands across the country were met and some workers continued to strike, which caused harm to the young union. The most important goal of the 1894 strike was not the restoration of wages, but rather the establishment of the UMWA as a cooperation at a national level.
• Lattimer Massacre - September 10, 1897. 19 miners were killed by police in Lattimer, Pennsylvania during a march in support of unions.
• Battle of Virden - October 1898. Part of the larger mine wars that established Illinois as the leading union state in the country, and a reason that Mary Harris "Mother" Jones is buried at Mount Olive, Illinois.
• Colorado Labor Wars - October 1903. The United Mine Workers conducted a strike in Colorado, called in October 1903 by President Mitchell, and lasting into 1904. The strike, while overshadowed by a simultaneous strike conducted by the Western Federation of Miners among hard rock miners in the Cripple Creek District, nonetheless contributed to the labor struggles in Colorado which came to be called the Colorado Labor Wars. The United Mine Workers effort was notorious for beatings inflicted upon traveling union officers and organizers, which ultimately helped to break the strike. These beatings were a mystery until the 1907 release of The Pinkerton Labor Spy by Morris Friedman, which revealed that the organization had been infiltrated by labor spies from the Pinkerton agency.
• Westmoreland County Coal Strike - 1910-1911, a 16-month coal strike in Pennsylvania led largely by Slovak 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.
• Ludlow Massacre - April 20, 1914. 20 people, including women and children, killed armed police, hired guns, and Colorado National Guardsmen broke up a tent colony formed by families of miners who had been evicted from company-owned housing.
• 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. This is depicted in the John Sayles film Matewan.
• 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, ending in the Battle of Blair Mountain in which the miners fought state militia, local police, and mine guards. These events are depicted in the 1987 novel Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina and the 2005 novel Blair Mountain by Jonathan Lynn.
• the 1920 Alabama coal strike, a lengthy, violent, expensive and fruitless attempt to achieve union recognition in the coal mines around Birmingham left 16 dead, including one lynching.
• The Herrin massacre occurred in June 1922 in Herrin, Illinois. 19 strikebreakers and 2 union miners were killed in mob action between June 21–22, 1922.