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The article provides a historical account of the struggle of mine workers in the U.S. in the Civil War era. Information is provided on the union organized by immigrant Illinois coal miners and their manifesto that called for emancipation of labor, the miners' marching strike following a pay cut, expansion of the miners union and the growing control of Belleville track operators of the coal market, and the collective counteroffensive of Illinois mine operators against the union.

The article discusses the Ludlow Massacre which was a deadly attack against United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) members and their families in Ludlow, Colorado in 1914. Topics discussed include the miners' strike to call for union recognition at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. owned by businessman John D. Rockefeller, the murder of miners and their families by mercenaries hired by Rockefeller, and the construction of a monument in Ludlow to commemorate the violence against UMWA miners.

The Lingan strike of 1882–83 was the last in a series of strikes over a two-decade period on Cape Breton Island's Sydney coalfield. With the use of untapped local sources, this article reconstructs the history of this understudied strike within a broader history of social relations on the coalfield. The migration of labourers from the island's backland farms – predominantly from Highland enclave settlements – to the coal mines played a decisive role in shaping the era's new coal mining villages and the character of social conflict. By the early 1880s, structural change associated with National Policy industrialism was eroding the old authority of the coal operators, and miners embraced the Provincial Workmen's Association (pwa) to advance their claims in long-standing and highly localized contestations. Ultimately the coal communities themselves imposed the emergent trade unionism. The Lingan strike marked a transition to a new political order on the coalfield, structured by the place of the coal mines within the wider Cape Breton countryside and built upon a powerful localism and moral economy that recast the public sphere and the miners' place in it. La grève de Lingan de 1882-1883 était la dernière d'une série de grèves sur une période de deux décennies dans le bassin houiller de Sydney, sur l'île du Cap-Breton. S'appuyant sur des sources locales inexploitées, cet article reconstruit l'histoire de cette grève peu étudiée dans une histoire plus large des relations sociales sur le bassin houiller. La migration des ouvriers des fermes de l'arrière-pays de l'île – principalement des colonies d'enclaves des Highlands – vers les mines de charbon a joué un rôle décisif dans la formation des nouveaux villages miniers de l'époque et le caractère du conflit social. Au début des années 1880, le changement structurel associé à l'industrialisme de la politique nationale érodait l'ancienne autorité des exploitants de charbon, et les mineurs ont adopté la Provincial Workmen's Association (pwa) pour faire valoir leurs revendications dans le cadre de contestations de longue date et très localisées. En fin de compte, les communautés charbonnières elles-mêmes ont imposé le syndicalisme naissant. La grève de Lingan a marqué une transition vers un nouvel ordre politique sur le bassin houiller, structuré par la place des mines de charbon dans la campagne élargie du Cap-Breton et construit sur un localisme puissant et une économie morale qui refondent la sphère publique et la place des mineurs dans celle-ci. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) has always advocated strongly for miners' safety, the empirical literature contains no evidence that unionization reduced mine injuries or fatalities during the 1970s and '80s. The author uses an updated methodology and a more comprehensive data set than previous studies to examine the relationship between unionization and underground, bituminous coal mine safety from 1993 to 2010. She finds that unionization predicts a substantial and statistically significant decline in traumatic injuries and fatalities, the two safety measures that are the least prone to reporting bias. These results are especially pronounced among larger mines. Overall, unionization is associated with a 14 to 32% drop in traumatic injuries and a 29 to 83% drop in fatalities. Yet unionization also predicts higher total and nontraumatic injuries, suggesting that injury reporting practices differ between union and nonunion mines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings up to date an analysis of the financial experience of the welfare and retirement fund for organized workers in the bituminous coal industry. The experience illustrates some of the difficulties that may be encountered in maintaining the solvency of a benefit program which is not actuarially funded, as well as showing the interrelationship of welfare financing and the economics of the coal industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines in what sense the decline of the coal industry contributed to the emergence of a debate about the genesis, shape und future of ‘Britishness’ in the 1990s and early 2000s. Taking a discourse-analytical approach, it argues that the decline of the coal industry contributed to bringing about the debate in two ways: firstly, by feeding into popular narratives of national decline and renewal, it helped to provide the debate’s intellectual background. Secondly, the political cleavages of the 1980s and 1990s between Old Labour, Thatcherism and New Labour elevated the coal industry to a contested symbol for a way of life and a political orientation. These differing interpretations, in return, were associated with a particularly British social reality, a self-conception of the British nation that was embedded in the London-centric political and cultural discourse. Changes to this self-narration required an explanation, which various contributions to the discussion of ‘Britishness’ in politics and popular culture sought to provide in the 1990s and early 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will offer the first historical assessment of the National Women Against Pit Closures movement. It shows that it was not a spontaneous formation but the result of work by a network of committed, long-time activists with strong connections to the left, including the Communist Party and the Women’s Liberation Movement. It will show how key questions caused divisions within the national organisation as it grew. In particular, activists were divided over whether the movement should aim solely to support the strike, or whether it should have broader aims relating to women’s lives, gender and feminism. Related to this, the movement divided over relationships with Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers, and the question of which women should be allowed to be members. Finally, the article examines how these questions grew more pressing after the end of the strike, and how and why the national movement had largely disappeared three years after the strike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By 1918, the British coal industry, like all industries, was facing the pressures of transitioning from a wartime to a peacetime economy. The pressures brought by a slowing economy would leave many coal miners, who possessed limited transferrable skills, harbouring deep concerns about their future employment. For those still in employment, concerns were increasing for workers’ health. Sharp increases in respiratory illnesses across the nation’s coalfields were now a major cause of disablement. Accompanying this was the almost inevitable possibility of unemployment, prompting major concerns among workers and trade unions. This article will explore how the nature of industrial relations across Britain’s coalfields changed during the interwar years in response to these challenges, and reveals how the government developed schemes to train disabled coal miners for work in other industries. The relationship between trade unions and the Ministry of Labour, and the incremental passage of legislation to address issues concerning workers’ occupational health in Britain’s coal mines will be examined. The onset of the Second World War ensured the coal industry was now central to the war effort. Recruitment was intensified accordingly. The improvement to working conditions underground, negotiated by trade unions, helped ensure that the workforce and the coal industry more generally were well-prepared for the challenges of the post-First World War economy, and the difficulties the Second World War would bring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE PAPER EXAMINES THE EXPERIENCE of C.B. Wade (1906-1982), a chartered accountant and university instructor who was recruited to work for organized labour during the period of transition from wartime mobilization to postwar reconstruction at the end of the Second World War. In hiring Wade in 1944, District 26 of the United Mine Workers of America became one of the first Canadian unions to employ a research director to help address the challenges of the new age of industrial legality and advance their social democratic agenda. The paper discusses Wade's background, including his involvement in the Workers' Educational Association, and documents his contributions to the work of the coal miners' union, including the efforts to promote public ownership of the industry. In addition, the paper discusses Wade's unpublished history of the union, a manuscript that has had a long life as an underground classic. While the negotiation of the postwar compromises between labour, capital and the state gave union staff such as Wade an increasingly central role in labour relations, this was not a stable context, and the paper also considers the deepening Cold War conditions that led to the end of his employment in 1950. In the context of labour and working-class history, Wade can be associated with a relatively small cohort of politically engaged intellectuals who made lasting contributions to the research capacity of unions and to the field of labour studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industrial Relations / Relations Industrielles is the property of Universite Laval, Department of Industrial Relations and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On December 30, 1969, President Richard Nixon signed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act into law. The act provided stronger preventative health and safety measures for coal mines and a federal compensation program for the victims of “black lung,” an occupational respiratory disease caused by the inhalation of coal dust. Responsibility for enforcing the new legislation fell to the United States Bureau of Mines, an agency located in the Department of the Interior. By late 1970, with the rate of coal mine fatalities and injuries on the rise, it was clear that the Bureau was failing to enforce the legislation. In response, miners wrote letters to their congressmen and national union officials. They drew particular attention to the Bureau's lax inspection procedures in non-union coal mines, which, they argued, contributed to dangerous working conditions. The Bureau was not the only obstacle to health and safety enforcement in the coal industry. The national leadership of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), headed by Tony Boyle, did little to protect miners' welfare. In response, a group of miners formed a grassroots organization called Miners for Democracy and won control of the union in the presidential election of 1972. Both miners' letters about the Bureau of Mines and the takeover of the UMW national leadership by Miners for Democracy provide a valuable insight to miners' political culture in the early 1970s. Coal miners were conscious political protestors, yet still maintained faith in bureaucratic institutions to protect their welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Material Culture Review is the property of Cape Breton University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the extraordinary political swing that occurred in the Durham coalfield in the 1931 general election. Having won all eleven county seats in 1929, Labour lost all but two in 1931. This was despite the dominance of the coal industry, the strength of the miners' union, and the increasing pre-eminence of Durham's Labour organization. While the circumstances of the election certainly motivated a traditional anti-socialist base, the article suggests that previous explanations have failed to acknowledge the extent to which mining constituents may also have been responsible for the result. Rather than any uniform political identity amongst the mining community, it finds that allegiances were fluid and complex, swayed by factors such as political charisma (particularly with regard to Ramsay MacDonald, re-elected at Seaham), specific local concerns, and paternalistic loyalties. In doing so, it reveals the fragility of the Labour Party's appeal even amongst its 'core' supporters. The National success in 1931 demonstrated that Labour's dominance in Durham remained recent, limited and as yet provisional, a finding that has significant implications for the wider picture of Labour's national advance, revealing that Labour's progress in the inter-war years was conditional and erratic even in its most 'natural' strongholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, an armed confrontation between a group of striking coal miners known as the Red Neck Army and police and strikebreakers in Logan County, West Virginia. The author questions the notion that the striking miners were defeated, and suggests that although U.S. federal troops intervened and ended the battle, it was a victory for those seeking to unionize the region's coal mining industry. Particular focus is given to the cadre of union leadership that was developed during the struggle, including Bill Blizzard, Charley Payne, and Ed Holstein, and to the acquittals of various union leaders on charges pressed by the state of West Virginia following the battle. Miners' attitudes toward the U.S. army are also discussed.

The article discusses the history of District 15 of the union the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in the western U.S., focusing on labor organizer Carlo Demolli. It notes the district's largely Italian membership, examining its official newspaper the "Il Lavoratore Italiano" (ILI), edited by Demolli. The author comments on social and economic aspects of coal camps and considers the role of Italian language communication and national culture in militant organizing and labor solidarity. Other topics include the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), the 1903-1904 UMWA strike in Colorado, and Demolli's conflict with journalist Leonel Ross Campbell, also known as Polly Pry.

The Great Strike of 1917 was, arguably, the greatest class confrontation in Australian history. For five weeks, the eastern states of Australia were paralysed by a mass strike, driven from below by a rank and file paying little heed to their reluctant leaders. Strike action involved nearly 100,000 workers and was only defeated by mass scabbing masterminded by conservative state and federal governments. Historians have tended to dismiss the Great Strike as mindless militancy. Central to this negative assessment has been the belief that the strikers could not win because “there was too much coal at grass”. But this may be a wrong assumption to make. A careful investigation of the actual situation with coal stocks in 1917 demonstrates that the strikers came much closer to winning than generally has been accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As the subsidiary part of coal mine company, worker village plays a significant role in the development of coalmine. Nowadays, with the depletion of mineral resources and the transition of coal economy, worker village is faceing a development dilemma. Through the analysis on its development history and current dilemma, we find out the factors of restricting the sustainable development of coal worker villages. Furthermore, we point out its reform strategy through the aspects of harmonious development of "urban-rural-coalmine" as well as viewpoint of human-oriented and community reconstruction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses the action taken for a community problem within the vicinity of CerrejÓn coal mine in Guajira, Colombia. A brief description of the mine, the previous and present living condition of inhabitants within the vicinity, the companies background, and its operation is discussed. A union leader observed the effects of operation to the community and later found out to have detrimental impact. An investigation was then conducted which resulted to a call for negotiation among concerned delegates. Discussed further, is the bargaining agreement between the company, union, and international support group. The article is concluded with a series of correspondence between agreeing party aiming to solve the problem.

This report offers new estimates of paid-up membership in the United Mine Workers from 1902 to 1929, derived from the international union's per-capita tax receipts. The estimates represent an improvement because they include more years and more states than previous estimates. More importantly, the new estimates disaggregate the grouped data presented in other sources to the state level. Disaggregation allows researchers to match these estimates to state-level data on the coal industry in other sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how and why women activists were able to achieve power in a movement of coal-mining men when they formed the Women's Auxiliary of the Progressive Miners (WAPM) in the early 1930s. The husbands and daughters of miners formed WAPM as part of the dual union struggle between the United Mine Workers and the Progressive Miners. The women's movement demonstrated how class and gender intersected and how men and women conceived alternate visions of the labor movement.

The article explores some of the major socio-economic and political reasons behind the labour unrest in Asansol-Raniganj coalmines despite the emergence of the modern technology and civilization in West Bengal, India. As part of the study, a survey has been made to two hundred workers of the four coalmines in the region including the Sitaldiha, Chichuria, Chinakuri, and Shyamsundar. It is stated that before nationalization, the coalmines were owned by private companies and all laws were in favour of the coalmine owners, which resulted to the creation of labour unions. With the advent of the process of liberalization and globalization, the plight of the coal miners worsened because the right to life, liberty, health, education and property were being violated by the authority.

The demand for coal in war-torn Europe after V. E. Day gave coalmining trade unions unprecedented bargaining leverage. Miners' incomes had been depressed throughout the interwar period, and they were now anxious to recover their past high wages and improve their conditions. In several key European countries, Communists were prominent among the leadership of mining trade unions. Communist miners' leaders Willi Agatz, Edward Gierek and Arthur Horner each faced unprecedented opportunities and challenges at the onset of the Cold War in 1948, as they sought to fuse their parallel identities as committed and influential Communists and as conscientious trade union negotiators in these newly advantageous circumstances. Each of these three "revolutionary" trade unionists pursued strategies that revived the position of miners, without undermining the potential for economic recovery in their respective countries — for which an uninterrupted supply of coal remained critical. A comparative study of the personal and political experiences of the three Communist miners' leaders enhances our understanding of the evolution of Communist trade unionism in the early postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a case study of labor strife in the Alabama coal fields from 1917 to 1921. Isolation of repression instances by industry and state; Evidence for strong presence of labor militancy; Factors inciting labor militancy among southern workers.

This article recounts the emergence of class-conscious coal miners in Nanty-glo, Pennsylvania in the 1920s. Despite its rapid development and favorable location, the Central Pennsylvania coal industry faced two threats. First, stimulated by wartime demand and favorable long-haul shipping rates, non-union southern mines, many owned by northern unionized operators, entered its traditional markets. Second, the region's narrow coal seams raised the cost of mechanization and the laying of underground track. Of critical importance in the defense of the miners' union in Nanty-glo was the willingness of local union officials to use innovative strategies to educate and organize miners. The Nanty-glo miners won many victories. They withstood the Ku Klux Klan and two years of deprivation. They remained united and their hold on the municipal government increased. But, they were defeated because of factors beyond their control. An increasingly isolated national union leadership turned its back on local unions battling the open shop.

Focuses on the trade union collaboration among black and white workers in Alabama coalfields from 1878 to 1908. Factors that prompted interracial unionism; Tensions between miners and operators of coalfields; Emergence of the Greenbackers, Miners' Trade Council (MTC) and the United Mine Workers (UMW) in Alabama.

The article discusses a coal strike at the State Coalfields in Wonthaggi, Victoria in 1934. Particular attention is paid to the coal miner's struggle for survival over a five month period during which the miner’s displayed resilience, cohesion, and received significant community support. The political implications the strike had on revitalizing the Victorian labor movement towards the end of the Great Depression are assessed. The unique social and political conditions of the Wonthaggi Township created by the Powlett River Branch of the Miners' Federation are detailed. The successful conclusion of the strike in favor of the coal miner's demands is recounted.

The article discusses the radicalization of the Asturian coal miners in Spain during 1921-1934. The Asturian revolution represents one of the greatest revolutionary moments in modern European history. The basic schools of thought to account for the revolutionary outbreak include the one which sees the revolution as the work of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Socialist trade union organization (UGT). The other school of thought states that the radicalization of a working class took matters into its own hands. The miners came to their readiness to rebel because of several developments, including the chronic economic crisis of the coal industry and the inability of the miners' unions to protect their members from the effects of the crisis.

Examines recent history of coal industry trade unionism and considers the processes of union renewal that may be taking place in Vorkuta, Russia. Vorkuta and the coal industry; Official union; Workers' committees; Sectional unionism from 1991-1993; Defensive unionism in 1992 and 1993; Exceptionalism in Vorgashorskaya in 1990-1994; Recomposition and changing alliances in 1994/1995.

Analyzes the labor strategy of Great Britain-based British Coal Corp. for the institutionalization of the proposed conciliation scheme formulated to take into account the emergence of the coal miners' trade unions. Examination of the industrial relations since 1985; Effect of the division of the workforce; Problem with the degree of recognition offered to the trade unions; Use of a conciliation and consultation machinery.

Discusses the formation of a communist-led union by the United Mine Workers of America in the U.S. Rise of rank-and-file opposition; Creation of the Progressive International Committee; Formation of the save the union movement; Reemergence of dual unionism; Expansion of the political content of trade union; Revolutionary potential of miners.

In the 1920s, the elected officers of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) District 2 (Central Pennsylvania) developed a workers' education program based on the idea that the organization and education of workers had to be carded on simultaneously and were the principal jobs of the union's leadership. During this period, they used educational activities to assist organizing drives in the Pennsylvania bituminous coal fields and to give support to beleaguered miners battling a well-financed open shop campaign. While educational programs included classes to improve basic literacy and union-related organizational skills, they focused primarily on enlarging the coal miner's identification with his union, community and the labor movement. In District 2, workers' education also included efforts by miners to educate other workers and the general public about the problems plaguing the coal fields. These educational programs played an important part in the lives of bituminous coal miners. However, when trade union organization finally collapsed under the weight of a massive open shop campaign, even the most elaborate workers' education programs could only temporarily sustain union miners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the trends and influence of union-management relationships in the coal industry in the U.S. Employment growth and wage movements in the coal industry; Factors affecting the decline of productivity in coal mines; Quality of labor relations; Organizing difficulties for the unions.

The article presents an in-depth exploration into the events, causes and deliberations of the coal miners' strike of 1895 in Minmi, New South Wales. The central issues of debate in the labor conflict are reviewed, citing the desire of the J. & A. Brown coal mining firm under John Brown to reduce costs by cutting mine worker wages and bonus commission payments. Details are then given of the subsequent labor strikes and occasional violence which resulted from the management decisions. Accounts are given describing the efforts of the miners' labor union to resist the wage reductions, the negotiations of Brown, and the eruption of several assaults and violent confrontations between certain protesting groups.

This article discusses the coal mining region of the lower Languedoc valley in France. The coal miners of the region are discussed, and the article examines their patterns of strikes and political action from 1880 through 1914. Labor strikes in 1881 and 1882 were caused due to worker rights and not political issues, but over time, worker strikes were caused due to left-wing political thought and the emergence of an anti-capitalist labor movement. The article also profiles union leaders during the time period.