Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners (German: "Western Federation of Miners") was a union in the United States .
founding
With a strike of miners in Coeur d'Alene in Idaho in 1893, the workers occupied several mines to the use of strikebreakers to prevent. On the initiative of Governor Frank Steunenberg , President Harrison sent federal troops to the town, who succeeded in driving out the occupiers and breaking the strike. They arrested around 500 workers and locked them in bull pens , barbed wire and palisade-fenced enclosures for oxen. Most were released and then ended the strike victoriously. The hired strikers were fired and the strikers reinstated. The Supreme Court overturned the verdict of four workers on charges of "conspiracy," whereupon they were also released. However, nine workers were sentenced to between four and nine months' imprisonment for "disregarding the court". Because they came to the opinion that only a uniformly structured union could counter the power of the mine owners, the nine founded the Western Federation of Miners after their release . It became one of the most militant unions in US history.
development
The WFM recruited its members primarily from miners in Utah , Colorado , Montana , Idaho , Nevada, and South Dakota . Due to their harsh living and working conditions and the mostly violent resistance of entrepreneurs, militias, gangsters and gangs, the members quickly radicalized. Industrial disputes took the form of a class war , partly because the miners could handle weapons and dynamite. The most spectacular clashes included the repeated labor disputes in Coeur d'Alene, two strikes in Cripple Creek , the strikes in Leadville in 1896 and in Goldfield in 1908. Membership grew from initially a few thousand members in 15 local groups by 1910 to almost 45,000 members in 177 local groups . At that time, the WFM was represented in 13 US states as well as in Canada , Alaska and British Columbia . She published a newspaper, "Miner's Magazine". Anyone who worked in the companies for which she was responsible could become a member. She also sought to involve Indians and Spanish-speaking residents of the American Southwest. In 1896 she joined the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which she left two years later to found the Western Federation of Labor.
In 1905 she supported the establishment of the Industrial Workers of the World . Its treasurer , "Big Bill" Haywood , became its first chairman. Haywood and WFM chairman Charles Moyer were charged in Boise in 1906 with the murder of Steunenberg, who was killed on December 30, 1905 by a bomb set in front of his house entrance. The charges against Moyer were dropped six months later, and Haywood was acquitted. In 1907 the WFM separated from the IWW and reunited with the AFL in 1916. For this reason it changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW). In the 1930s she worked in the Congress of Industrial Organizations , from which she was expelled in 1950. In the same year she organized another strike in New Mexico . The union's history ended in 1967 with the merger with the United Steelworkers of America .
literature
- Philip Yale Nicholson: History of the Labor Movement in the United States . German edition: Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86602-980-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nicholson, History of the Labor Movement in the United States , p. 143
- ^ Perlman, Selig, Philip Taft: History of Labor in the United States . New York 1966, Vol. 4, p. 172
- ^ A b The Western Federation of Miners , University Libraries, University of Colorado Boulder, March 16, 2018
- ↑ Nicholson, History of the Labor Movement in the United States , p. 174
- ^ Western Federation of Miners and International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Records on Microfilm , Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library
- ^ The Haywood-Mayer-Pettibone case , Louis Adamic, Libcom.org, June 14, 2014
- ^ The Western Federation of Mineworkers , David L. Schirer, Utah History Encyclopedia