The United Mine Workers of America 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. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.
Frank H. Little was an American labor leader who was murdered in Butte, Montana, for his union and anti-war activities. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, organizing miners, lumberjacks, and oil field workers. He was a member of the union's Executive Board when he was murdered.
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of North Idaho: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899. This article is a brief overview of both events.
On April 21, 1920, during a miners strike in Butte, Montana's copper mines, company guards fired on striking miners picketing near a mine of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, killing Tom Manning and injuring sixteen others, an event known as the Anaconda Road massacre. His death went unpunished.
Charles H. "Charlie" Moyer was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and was shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike. He also was a leading force in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, although he later denounced the organization.
Edward "Ed" Boyce was president of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical American labor organizer, socialist and hard rock mine owner.
The Colorado labor wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the US state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes.
The Workingmen's Benevolent Association was a 19th-century labor organization that consisted mainly of coal miners. It was organized in 1868 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, with John Siney as president. In 1869, the organization called a strike of coal-miners from May 5 to June 16. There were some gains resulting from the strike. The union was organized in an area of alleged Molly Maguires activity.
The Butte–Anaconda Historic District is a National Historic Landmark (NHL) that spans parts of Walkerville, Butte and Anaconda, Montana, United States. It has the most resources of any U.S. National Historic Landmark District.
The Copper Country strike of 1913–1914 was a major strike affecting all copper mines in the Copper Country of Michigan. The strike, organized by the Western Federation of Miners, was the first unionized strike within the Copper Country. It was called to achieve goals of shorter work days, higher wages, union recognition, and to maintain family mining groups. The strike lasted just over nine months, including the Italian Hall disaster on Christmas Eve, and ended with the union being effectively driven out of the Keweenaw Peninsula. While unsuccessful, the strike is considered a turning point in the history of the Copper Country.
The Leadville miners' strike was a labor action by the Cloud City Miners' Union, which was the Leadville, Colorado local of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), against those silver mines paying less than $3.00 per day. The strike lasted from 19 June 1896 to 9 March 1897, and resulted in a major defeat for the union, largely due to the unified opposition of the mine owners. The failure of the strike caused the WFM to leave the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and is regarded as a cause for the WFM turn toward revolutionary socialism.
The November 1897 proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana was a reflection of western labor's assessment of the struggle between labor and capital after the failed Leadville Colorado, Miners' Strike. The proclamation, and the impetus behind it had a significant impact on the labor movement in the United States, Canada, and other countries for a period of several decades.
The Bunker Hill Mining Company is a mining company with facilities in Kellogg and Wardner Idaho.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor confrontation of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident, the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, followed by military occupation of the district.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor strike of 1892 erupted in violence when labor union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year.
The Butte, Montana labor riots of 1914 were a series of violent clashes between copper miners at Butte, Montana. The opposing factions were the miners dissatisfied with the Western Federation of Miners local at Butte, on the one hand, and those loyal to the union local on the other. The dissident miners formed a new union, and demanded that all miners join the new union, or be subject to beatings or forced expulsion from the area. Sources disagree whether the dissidents were a majority of the miners, or a militant minority. The leadership of the new union contained many who were members of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), or agreed with the I.W.W.'s methods and objectives. The result of the dispute between rival unions was that the copper mines of Butte, which had long been a union stronghold for the WFM, became open shop employers, and recognized no union from 1914 until 1934.
Butte is a city in southwestern Montana established as a mining camp in the 1860s in the northern Rocky Mountains straddling the Continental Divide. Butte became a hotbed for silver and gold mining in its early stages, and grew exponentially upon the advent of electricity in the late-nineteenth century due to the land's large natural stores of copper. In 1888 alone, mining operations in Butte had generated an output of $23 million. The arrival of several magnates in the area around this time, later known as the "Copper Kings," marked the beginning of Butte's establishment as a boomtown.
The Goldfield, Nevada labor troubles of 1906-1907 were a series of strikes and a lockout which pitted gold miners and other laborers, represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), against mine owners and businessmen.
