What Is A Scab?

 Recently on a social media group of which I am a member, I saw someone post a photograph of a group of scabs being guarded by Kentucky National Guard soldiers in order for them to cross a picket line in a historical Harlan County strike in order to assist the coal company to break the strike.  This person had described the scabs and their activity in this manner: "1939 Harlan County Kentucky. Miners being escorted to work by the National Guard. This is how the name Bloody Harlan mostly came about among other reasons."  This was obviously an attempt by someone with anti union sentiments to make the scabs appear respectable and normal as if they were ordinary coal miners which is the furthest thing from the truth.  I immediately confronted the anti union nature of the description in this manner: " You are partly correct but you forgot the most important word. Those were not miners. They were SCABS, the lowest form of life in the mining world."  I attached a link to Jack London's famous description of a scab from over a hundred years ago.  Jack London died in 1916, and I have no idea exactly when he initially published that beautiful piece of writing.  But it just as accurate today as it was when Jack London first sat down to write it.  I am including a small portion of London's description so none of you can ever say you haven't known about at least part of it.   

"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.  When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't." (Jack London, "Ode To A Scab")

 

This is a fine little story about a scab from a speech Mother Jones, the great female union organizer, told during a speech to striking miners in 1912.  

"An old Irish woman had two sons who were scabs. The women threw one of them over the fence to his mother. He lay there still. His mother thought he was dead and she ran into the house for a bottle of holy water and shook it over Mike.  “Oh for God’s sake, come back to life,” she hollered.  Come back and join the union.” He opened his eyes and saw our women standing around him. “Sure, I’ll go to hell before I’ll scab again,’ says he." (Mother Jones, "Autobiography", Chapter 11, from the website of The International Workers of The World)

 

Although John L. Lewis did not specifically use the word "scab' in the quote I am using below, he definitely was talking about scabs, gun thugs, all other forms of vermin which follow on the heels of corporate managers hoping to pick up some small bone or crust which these greater vermin leave behind for doing their bidding all the way up to murder and robbery, and they know in their small, black hearts that they are unfit to sleep in an honest woman's bed, eat a meal at an honest man's table, or father a child capable of becoming a decent, hard working human.  

“No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation.”  (John L. Lewis) 

 

I must say here, in the interest of total honesty, that I have never spent one day as a member of  a labor union.  But I grew up in a home and a community where nearly everyone knew the important work that labor unions have done and will always continue to do for the good of all working men and women.  The hundreds of benefits which have been won for the working class have been won by the blood, sweat, and tears of good, fearless union men and women who have faithfully stood their ground against corporations, their officers, and their scabs until all those parties realized the error of their ways and stopped resisting union efforts to improve the world.  Several members of my extended family have spent their lives as union members.  As child by the time I was 9 or 10, I was allowed to read the "United Mine Workers Journal" each month after my uncle Mabry Hicks, an electrician at a tipple in Wheelwright, Kentucky, was done with his copy.  I often spent long winter evenings sitting in my parents' grocery store listening to the union members in our community talk about their efforts to organize, and how much they benefited from union membership.  As an adult, I came to know several men and women who had spent their lives fighting as union organizers all over Central and Southern Appalachia.  They served as my mentors and professors, teaching me on a daily basis just how important trade unions are to the success of America. I came to know at least four people who had been hauled in front of Fascist Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee in the 1950's and who stood their ground against his efforts to destroy their lives.  I attended the funeral of my brother Hewie Hicks who was killed in a nonunion punch mine in Floyd County Kentucky and knew full well that he might have lived a much longer life if he had been working in a union mine.  I know full well the danger that scabs have helped coal operators perpetrate against the working class of  Appalachia and other coal producing states.  I also know that labor unions all across America, in all forms of industry, have saved thousands of lives with the contracts they have won and the laws and government regulations they have brought into existence.  You should recognize these truths also and support unions wherever they are working for the betterment of working conditions for men and women in America.  Union, Yes!  

Ruminations On Labor Day 2023

 

Labor Day was created by President Grover Cleveland on June 28, 1894.  He was a Democrat which is just one more proof, if you need any, that if you want something done for the working class in America you must elect Democrat to all offices at all levels.  

This Labor Day in 2023, the United States is very fortunate to have President Biden in office since he has proven over his long and highly successful political career that he is a committed friend of the working class and of organized labor.  

Both for the working class and the country in general, organized labor has done more for the country than any other segment of the populace.  Unions fought for and won the forty hour week, the eight hour day, paid vacations and holidays, sick pay, company provided health and life insurance, ended child labor, unemployment benefits, workers compensation laws, Black Lung Benefits, disability benefits, the Medical and Family Leave Act, and not one of those benefits of organized labor's work was ever a focus of action by the Republican Party.  They were all produced with the cooperation of organized labor and Democratic presidents.  

The bottom line for the working class in America will always be that if workers support unions, Democratic elected officials, and the rights of workers we all win.

"Coal People LIfe in Southern Colorado's Company Towns, 1890-1930"--Book Review

Book Cover, Photo by The Colorado Historical Society & Rick J. Clyne (All Rights Reserved)

Clyne, Rick J. Coal People Life in Southern Colorado's Company Towns, 1890-1930 (Denver, CO, Colorado Historical Society, 1999)

This little book has been one of the most pleasant and informative things I have read in quite some time.  It began as a masters thesis in history for the author, Rick J. Clyne, when he was a graduate student at The University of Colorado at Denver.  He states that he turned the thesis into this book upon the urging of some of his professors and the Colorado Historical Society which published the book.  It covers a forty year period from 1890 to 1930 in the coal fields of Colorado and is based primarily on information which the author gained from oral history records at the Colorado Coal Project and at the Huerfano County Ethno-History Project.  The photographs in the book are wonderful and wonderfully informative about coal camp life at the turn of the twentieth century.  With that said, I have chosen to scan the book cover with its relatively generic photo of an extended family or group of people in one of the camps.  The other photograph I am including in this review is one of a group of young boys who are either going to work or leaving the mine in one of those camps.  That photo is not labeled as to the site at which it was taken.  But it is one of the most telling photographs of child labor in America that I have ever seen. The photo is printed in the book over two pages and does not scan well but it is still graphic, memorable, and somewhat shocking to see.  The photograph shows eight juvenile coal miners whose ages likely range for eight or nine to about fourteen.  They look tired and far too old before their time.  One of the boys appears to have some sort of genetic based facial conformity which might indicate either fetal alcohol syndrome or an intellectual impairment.  Remember that the author of the book, Rick J. Clyne, and the Colorado Historical Society own all the rights to these photographs and they are fully protected under US Copyright Law.  Do not duplicate, copy, scan or use these two photographs in any manner without the express written permission of Rick J. Clyne and/or the Colorado Historical Society.  

Juvenile Miners In Colorado--Photo by The Colorado Historical Society and Rick J. Clyne, (All Rights Reserved)

 The book focuses on coal camps in Huerfano and Las Animas counties in Colorado and that area includes the site of the Ludlow Massacre, one of the most horrendous events in all the history of coal mining in America.  Clyne gives credit to a visit to the UMWA built memorial to the dead at Ludlow for sparking his interest in the coal camps of the region.  The book is composed of a preface, an acknowledgements section, and seven chapters.  It is only 102 pages of primary of text without the index and notes.  But those 102 pages are incredibly well worth reading for the person who is interested in coal camp life, coal mining, Colorado history, the UMWA, immigration, or company towns.  The author did a commendable job of converting what appears to have been a more academically focused masters thesis into a readable book for the casual student of history or coal camp life. The seven chapters are labeled Coalfields, Companies, and Unions; The Company Town; The Community; A Miner's Life; A Woman's Life; A Child's Life; and Conclusion.  Each of those chapters addresses a key component of life in a company town in the coalfields.  Clyne leaned heavily on those first person oral history accounts and that was an excellent choice.  No history is better than oral history provided by the people who lived it.  But noticeably absent is any sizable input from company officials, company police, or strike breakers.  The author also, in my opinion, attempted to be just a bit too generous toward the companies in his discussion of labor unrest, child labor, or other conflicts except those which occurred between different ethnic groups.  

But, this is an excellent book and well worth reading if you are interested in coal mining history in America or Colorado.  Its positive qualities far outweigh the deficiencies I have noted above.  Since it is from a small publisher or regional history, it is likely that it was published in a small printing and may be difficult to find other than on website of used books.  But it will be worth the effort. 

"Memoir" by Robert Hicks--Book/Manuscript Review

Robert Hicks, Photo by UMWA Local 5895

For those of you who ever actually read the list of "Books I Have Read Lately" which has been located at the bottom of the page on this blog ever since I have been blogging, you might have noticed lately that I had added "Memoir" by Robert Hicks to that list of books.  I used the term "book" somewhat expansively in reference to that particular work as I sometimes to do documents, manuscripts, and other unpublished sources of information which I believe could be useful to another student of Appalachian Studies or of some particular subject covered by some writing I have read.  I have always hoped that at least a few of my readers might choose from time to time to read some of these listings.  This particular manuscript can only be found in one place on earth so far as I know and that is the Wayland Historical Society in Wayland, Kentucky, where I have been doing some research recently.  If you decide to try to locate and read this manuscript, you will need to travel to Wayland to see it.  But the bright side is that the Historical Society has a relatively broad policy about access to their holdings and the copying of those holdings.  

I had two different reasons for choosing to read this 50 page manuscript: 1) my ongoing research involves the town of Wayland and the Elkhorn Coal Company which built the town and owned it until about 1970; 2) Robert Hicks was a distant cousin of mine and was raised in a holler called Bruce near Mousie, Kentucky, where my father was also raised.  Robert Hicks served as the fifth president of UMWA Local 5895 in Wayland, KY, and his son, Bobby Ray Hicks, still serves as president of Local 1741 which was merged with Local 5895 sometime after coal mining ended in Wayland and the number of active UMWA members dwindled. As his biography in "Twentieth Anniversary...of Local Union 5895 United Mine Workers Of America 1933-1953" states: "Robert Hicks started work in the mines...in 1919" and served his local union, the town of Wayland, and the greater community in a variety of ways as Financial Secretary and President of Local 5895 and as Police Judge of the City of Wayland.  

When I read this memoir, I was able to learn some previously unknown information about my extended family and the area in Mousie where they lived and many of them are buried.  I also learned more about a man named John "Bud" Wicker who had been a school teacher and elected official in the area around the turn of the twentieth century.  This was particularly important to me since a treasured family member who developed dementia late in life had fixated on John "Bud" Wicker at times during the severe deterioration of their dementia.  As a well known and well loved caretaker would walk through the house this person would often say, "There comes that SOB John "Bud" Wicker".  Their caretakers knew nothing of John "Bud" Wicker but I had at least heard of him during my childhood and knew that he had been well respected in the county.  His photo and a warm remembrance of him is included in the memoir and I immediately copied that page and mailed it to the caretaker of my family member.  It seems that the family member, in their dementia, had fixated on their old grade school teacher after they could no longer recognize their caretaker and we all found it quite humorous as some of these dementia stories can be.  Secondly, I was able to learn the original source of one bit of information about my paternal grandfather, Charlie Hicks, which I had found repeated in another more questionable source.  Robert Hicks had also included in the memoir other somewhat more lengthy information about my grandparents: 

"I remember on several occasions, Joe and I would go up to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Betty's to stay all night.  Uncle Charlie was somewhat of a rhyme maker.  He was all the time making a rhyme on someone and we just loved to hear him.  Aunt Betty was always working with her loom weaving cloth to make her children clothes, or she would be spinning wool on her old spinning wheel to make wool thread to knit their stockings.  She was also one of the old midwives who caught babies from under persimmon trees, or got them out from among Uncle Charlie's bee gum stands.  Uncle Charlie was always talking about his "honey money" and his old woman.  He must have had at least seventy five bee gums and an old mule called Jim.  He would start out on Old Jim and say, "Come on Jim, we're going to Lackey or maybe Garrett."  He would start out singing "Tell Mother I'll Be There".  That's an old Baptist song.  At breakfast he would have a big bowl of honey and we boys didn't care too much for honey.  All we wanted was that big bowl of gravy.  I think that gravy was the greatest thing the old people ever learned to fix.  It it hadn't been for gravy, many folks would have starved to death.  We would eat every bit of it and even scrape the skillet clean.  That was a big skillet too."  (Robert Hicks, "Memoir" page 7)

It was wonderful for me to read that somewhat lengthy remembrance of the paternal grandparents I had never known personally or heard hat story in its entirety.  I had known that Grandma Betty was a midwife until she was about seventy-five and I had also known that  Grandpa Charlie kept seventy-five or a hundred stands of bees until he was about eighty and peddled honey among the coal camps by mule back even at that advanced age.  It also reminded me of a story my father Ballard Hicks used to tell about going to Jackson in his childhood with Grandpa Charlie and at least one of his brothers.  It was the first time they had seen cement sidewalks and Daddy always said that his brother kept looking at the poured concrete sections of the sidewalk until he finally said, "I sure wish I knowed where they got these big flat rocks.  Pap could sure use some of them to set his bee gums on."  

Elizabeth "Betty" & Charlie Hicks

Robert Hicks also made one short reference to my maternal great-grandfather Hence Hicks, who was murdered in 1935, by saying that he had been an oxen driver in a local logging or farming operation.  But he only made one short reference to the United Mine Workers of America to which he apparently had devoted several years of his life and had obviously inculcated union thinking into his son to the point that Bobby Ray Hicks also became a UMWA official.  That failure to discuss the UMWA left the readers of his memoir without many key elements of his life's work I am certain.  But this book is well written with only minimal linguistic errors considering it was written by a relatively uneducated man.  That skillful writing is also one more testament to the fact that the Hicks genes seem to carry some propensity for producing people who like to write or "make a rhyme" as my grandfather, father, and myself have done along with Robert Hicks.  If you are a descendant of some of the Hicks family living around Mousie Kentucky, you will benefit from making a trip to the Wayland Historical Society and reading the "Memoir" of Robert Hicks. 

"Twentieth Anniversary...of Local Union 5895 United Mine Workers Of America 1933-1953" by UMWA Local 5895--Book Review

During a recent research trip to the Wayland Kentucky Historical Society in Wayland, KY, one of the key coal camp towns of the Big Sandy River drainage in Floyd County KY, I was provided a copy of this fifty page book commemorating the first twenty years of UMWA Local Union 5895.  The book was originally written and published by the local union as part of an anniversary celebration in 1953.  It was reprinted by the Historical Society in May 2005.  It is well worth the reading by any student of UMWA history, Floyd County, Wayland, Kentucky, Appalachia, the Big Sandy River, or trade unionism in general.  The book states that "in a regular meeting in May, 1952 ...a motion was passed to instruct the President to appoint a committee and commission them to prepare a history of our local union to be printed in book form...".   The committee was composed of the following members: Nobel Hobbs, Chairman; J. F. Dixon; Lawrence Mount; Charles Burnett; McKinley Parrigin; Robert Hicks; Joe Hicks, Secretary; Pete Mills; E. Hawk Moore; Guy Coleman; Charles Turner; and Roy Lykins.  Let me state for the record that during my childhood and teen years I knew both E. Hawk Moore and McKinley Parrigin.  It is also likely that I am distantly related to Robert Hicks who, along with his brother Joe Hicks, served the local union in a variety of roles for many years.  They were both born at Mousie, KY, the birthplace of my father, Ballard Hicks.  I did not know Guy Coleman but after his death I spent many hours in the home of his widow, Rusha Coleman, because of my friendship with their son Keith Coleman.  Let me also state at the outset of this review of this book that the committee did an excellent job with the book, especially in light of the fact that they were all working full time jobs in the mines, were generally also performing other unpaid duties for the union, and were, in most cases, only educated at the high school level.  The Wayland Historical Society is also to be commended for their efforts to reprint the book and making it available to a larger audience in the second generation copies.  I had never seen a copy of the original text and I am certain that, like many small publishing projects, few copies of the original exist today.  

This book may be only fifty pages but it contains a treasure trove of information for members of all the groups I listed in my opening paragraph.  There are photos and biographies of many of the early officers of Local 5895.  There are nine brief written chapters detailing the first twenty years in the life of the local union.  There are group photos of the local union officers in 1953 and the committee which produced the book.  There is a list of "Some Of Our Firsts" which enumerates more than a dozen key actions and events in the history of the local union.  There is also a brief description of key achievements in the most recent union contract at the time.  There are lists of local union members and their sons who served in WWII and of those members who died in WWII & Korea.  The book also contains a "Public Service Roll" listing members who held elected or appointed positions in the city government of Wayland.  The book is dedicated to a list of 35 "...industrial soldiers who gave their lives in accidents while producing coal..."  in the previous twenty years.  

I found information in this little book which is priceless to me as both a committed believer in organized labor and a writer committed to preserving the history and culture of Central and Southern Appalachia.  I am sure many of my readers will also cherish much of the information which has been preserved in this little masterpiece.  It is a shame that it was not more widely circulated but it has been preserved in the Wayland Historical Society and can be accessed there by contacting the Historical Society.  I am willing to scan and e-mail specific information from the book to my readers who have a genuine and valid interest in reading it.  It is a real tragedy that every union local in the country has not done such a piece of work.  But, as we all know, frequently union members were literally fighting for their lives on a daily basis, working in dangerous occupations for companies which did not care one whit about an individual life of an employee once that person had been replaced.  That brings to mind the old saying in the coal fields of Appalachia that in the early days of coal mining company officials would have rather lost a man than a mule in the mine since another miner could always be hired but a mule had to be bought.  If you ever visit the Wayland Historical Society, try to get a look at this little book, view their wonderful collection of period antiques, and consider giving them a donation to support work like this.  

Wayland Kentucky Historical Society Trip And Research

Last Saturday, February 23, 2019, I took  a trip to Wayland, Kentucky, in Floyd County to do some research in the Wayland Historical Society records and to meet and spend time with two newly learned cousins on the Allen side of my genealogy.  Sam Bradley and his grandson Alexander Allen, who are both interested in genealogy, coal camp and UMWA history, and the history of the Floyd, Knott, and Wayland areas.  We met and spent about two hours or so searching the records in the Elkhorn Coal Company personnel files which were miraculously saved from being lost by the fortunate accident of having been found in an abandoned building by someone with enough foresight to donate them to the historical society.  The Wayland Historical Society is located in the Wayland, Kentucky, city hall and it also has decent museum of probably close to 2,000 square feet with a large, but somewhat disorganized collection of items related to the history of the coal camps in the area and to the growth of Wayland.  

We spent a lot of time getting to know each other, sharing our common political ideas in favor of democracy, trade unionism, and Democratic politics.  I was amazed to find the personnel records of several members of my family including my father, Ballard Hicks; my maternal grandfather, Woots Hicks; my maternal uncle, Mabry Hicks; my maternal uncle by marriage, Corbett "Carbide" Terry; and several others whom I had known when I was a child.  I was able to copy these records and will use them to further my knowledge of my own genealogy; the history of Wayland, Beaver Creek, and Floyd County; and the history of the United Mine Workers in Eastern Kentucky. Since Sam Bradley and I knew dozens of people in common it was both wonderful to share stories and a bit confusing to realize that we are roughly the same age and had never met.  I look forward to returning to the historical society to research further in their collections and spend more time with Sam Bradley and Alexander Allen.  

I would strongly recommend that anyone who likes to learn about the history of the coal industry, Beaver Creek, Wayland, Floyd County, or the United Mine Workers contact the Wayland Historical Society and schedule a time to visit there and possibly research their collection.  I do have some misgivings that the historical society has a small number of members, appears to not necessarily be well funded, and could be dealt with less favorably by future administrations in city hall.  If you find it in your heart to do so, it would greatly appreciated if you could make a donation, however small, to the Wayland Kentucky Historical Society.  Here is their contact information if you should find it in your heart to mail them a contribution, call for access to their records, or simply send them a post card to say thank you for working to preserve the history of Eastern Kentucky.  2662 KY Route 7, Wayland, Kentucky, 41666, (606) 358-9471.

REQUIEM FOR A UNION

The Slow, Sad Death Of The UMWA

In an Associated Press story dated September 5, 2015, we were informed that Patriot Coal had just shut down the last union mine in Kentucky.  In another story from "Coal Age" dated February 15, 2015, the magazine commented on the fact that the UMWA was now unrepresented in the Illinois Basin, one of the richest and historically most productive coal fields in North America.  These two stories served in many ways as a preliminary journalistic epitaph for the once mighty United Mine Workers of America which in its prime had more than half a million dues paying members across America and Appalachia.  The United Mine Workers had been one of the leading unions in the entire effort to organize American labor, fight for worker's rights, and to pave the road for most of the human services and environmental agencies and legislative achievements which had, until August 5, 1981, been considered to be mainstays of the relationship between corporate employers and the work force which performs their bidding.

Photo Of John L. Lewis by AZ Quotes

It has never been my good fortune to be a member of a labor union.  But I grew up in a strongly union oriented family on Right Beaver Creek in Knott County KY and my maternal uncle Mabry Hicks was a member of the UMWA for his entire career as a miner and I was allowed to read his United Mine Workers Journal every month as soon as he finished with it.  I started out liking the joke page and the stories it contained about the places and people I recognized from time to time.  But, over the course of time, along with the strong union orientation of my entire family, the journal helped me to develop an understanding of the tenuous and sometimes antagonistic relationship between labor and business.  I have lived in the Appalachian coal fields of KY and WV most of my life. I have also traveled fairly extensively through the coal fields of several other states including VA, TN, OH, PA, and IL.  My parents operated a small country store throughout my childhood and I was sometimes a patient, for minor childhood problems, at the UMWA owned hospital at McDowell, KY.  I saw on a regular basis what could be accomplished in Appalachia and America if workers organized, gained union representation, and held firm to their union principles both individually and collectively.  I saw the difference in wages and benefits workers received in union operations as opposed to the smaller, non-union punch mines. "Punch Mine" is the colloquial name given to leased operations which large companies placed in the hands of small operators because they were too expensive or too risky for the large operators to choose to assume the liability of their operation. The leasing operators would assume all the liability and pray to make a fortune by paying as little as possible to employees with few to no benefits above their substandard wages. In addition to receiving the royalties on any coal these leases produced, the large corporate owners also often leased or sold old, worn out, and shoddy equipment to the lease operators who were often starting out with nothing more than a foreman's license, a naive desire to succeed, a shaky credit rating, and no capital.  These operations were nearly always in coal seams with bad bottom, bad top, water, or gas. Quite a few of them had the entire combination. Many of them were also off the beaten paths of the railroads and any coal produced had to be trucked many miles to customers which naturally lowered the price of the product. It was always high risk for the lease operators and a guaranteed win for the corporations which held the mineral rights. If a ton came out the company got their cut and if the roof caved in, the mine exploded, or employees were killed or injured in a multitude of other ways the leasing operator took the fall. And if that operator went broke, gave up, or got killed themselves another ambitious and gullible individual was always standing by under the mistaken belief they could succeed in the same lease.

UMWA Journal Cover--Photo by Lorne Blair Rare Books

 I saw the benefits union miners received from the chain of hospitals operated by the UMWA in Appalachia.  I have personally been inside the hospitals at McDowell, KY; Beckley, WV; Hazard, KY; South Williamson, WV; West Liberty, KY;  and Man, WV.  The Man location was closed years ago. The entire chain is now operated independently as the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System.  I had known the wonderful work the hospitals and their dedicated staff performed on a daily basis before the union sold them off to lower expenses tied to a long list of elderly retirees, decreasing membership, and myriad other economic factors. I still use the West Liberty, Kentucky, location and the chain does provide good care in the region.  But it is not nearly as patient centered as it was when the UMWA owned it. 

Map Of The Illinois Basin Coal Field by USGS Energy Resources Program

I have watched as the numbers of UMWA members and UMWA mines steadily decreased over the past thirty or forty years. In the late 1930's, the UMA had about 800,000 members nationwide and was a social and political force to be reckoned with. But in today's world, there are less than 50,000 members and many of those are rapidly aging retirees.  From a high of 11,000 members in Logan County, WV, at the height of the coal boom to a current low of only a few hundred in the county, union membership steadily decreased all across the nation and union negotiating power has also persistently and fatally shrunk in direct proportion to the percentage of coal production tied to the union.

We will examine several reasons which I believe are tied directly to the steady deterioration of the UMWA.  Some of these reasons began more than forty years ago and the most prominent of those is the steady, ongoing war against union labor in particular and most mainstream labor in general which hit full swing in the early days of the Reagan Administration and which has continued under every Republican president and congress this country has elected since 1980.  This war against union labor has also been combined with a consistent effort to deregulate nearly every industry in the country by the Reagan White House and every subsequent Republican White House.  The first major blow in this two pronged effort was the firing of the air traffic controllers.  At the time, I was working as a horse farm foreman in Central Kentucky and spending little time in Appalachia.  But I knew at the time that the firing of the controllers was simply a first blow against organized labor in general.  The AFL-CIO chose not to become involved in the issue because they had endorsed Reagan and mistakenly believed that it was too early to end their supposed honey moon with the White House.  I believed at the time and still do that the AFL-CIO and organized labor in general should have stepped up and supported the controllers wholeheartedly and, if necessary, by means of a general one day nationwide strike by every union laborer in America.  Such an action could have proven instantly that organized labor collectively held a great deal of power and would not allow the White House to peremptorily terminate several thousand of the most critical and highly specialized union workers in America.  When organized labor quietly sat on their hands and watched the air traffic controllers be fired and replaced with poorly qualified and inadequately trained workers, the door was opened through which big business and the subsequent Republican administrations would chisel away at the superstructure of organized labor, workers rights, fair pay, and every other benefit which union women and men had won over the previous century.

The great majority of union labor contracts negotiated in America since that time have been, in one way or another, giveaway contracts.  In nearly every one of them, labor has lost either pay, benefits or both. Perhaps, the worst of these giveaway contracts was the one signed by leadership of the Teamsters Union and approved by their membership vote which stripped numerous benefits from the United Parcel drivers and laborers in 2013.  Beginning with that negotiation process, United Parcel couched their efforts to strip union workers of their rights and benefits in such terms as "seeking driver flexibility" which was a misnomer for the company's effort to broaden the job descriptions and increase the work load for drivers.  Such efforts across a large number of unionized companies steadily chiseled away at the strength and viability of unions.

Map Of Appalachian Basin Coal Field by Energy Data Exchange US Department of Energy

Additionally, the UMWA suffered from serious and permanently detrimental periods of leadership.  Beginning with the presidency of W. A. "Tony" Boyle from 1963 to 1972, a long period began when the union was deliberately and criminally mismanaged by its leadership.  In 1969, Joseph "Jock" Yablonski ran for the presidency of the union with strong support from the membership, the best of intentions to reshape the union back into the worker centered entity of its early years, and a great deal of likelihood of winning.  In September of 1969, even before the election, which was held on December 9, Boyle plotted to have Yablonski murdered, embezzled the money to pay for the crime from union funds, and arranged to have three men hired to commit the crime.  The murderers actually killed Joseph "Jock" Yablonski, his wife, and adult daughter all in their Pennsylvania home on December 31, 1969.  Boyle was indicted and convicted of embezzling union funds to make illegal election contributions in 1973 and sent to federal prison.  He was indicted for the murder for hire scheme in September 1973 and sentenced in April 1974 to three consecutive life terms. He died in prison in 1985.

Photo of Joseph "Jock" Yablonski by YouTube

In December 1972, Arnold Miller, a West Virginia mainstream miner who had previously run unsuccessfully for the state legislature, was certified to succeed Boyle as the union president.  Despite his apparent honesty and good intentions, Miller proved to be less than maximally effective as a union administrator.  His term lasted until 1979, and was marked by naive and inept decision making on the part of Miller and those who revolved in his orbit of power and influence.  At the time of his election, the union had about a quarter of a million members but a series of wildcat strikes, legislative attacks on the union, and increasing automation caused the membership to steadily shrink throughout the administrations of Miller and his immediate successor Sam Church who also proved to less than effective as an administrator even though he had been vice president since 1977.  Church was succeeded by Richard Trumka in 1982.  Richard Trumka did have a brief history as a working miner but became an attorney before returning to work for the UMWA in 1974 as a staff attorney.  Trumka is now president of the AFL-CIO and it appears that his intentions from the start were to achieve a higher office than the presidency of the UMWA.  While he had all the skills, education, and training necessary to be a strong president, his overall personal goals seem to have prevented him from focusing on  the needs of the union membership.  Since December 1995, the UMWA has been under the leadership of Cecil Roberts and that term has been not much more than a caretaker administration as union membership, representation among the active mining work force, and overall political and social power have steadily shrunk to the pitiful state in which it exists today.

During the week of June 18-25, 2018, in  "The Nation" magazine, America's best political magazine, a short article by co-authors Bryce Covert and Mike Konczal under the title "Union Strong" presents a graphic which shows that unionized workers which represented 30% of all American labor in 1955 now represent only 11% as of 2017.  The graphic goes on to show that union workers receive 10-20% higher pay than non-union workers, that workers of color benefit as much as 5 times the income boost from membership that white workers receive which serves to provide them with racial parity in terms of pay and benefits.  Therefore, the woman or man of color in the workforce has a great deal to gain from active membership in and unstinting support of a trade union.  And, as income disparity grows like a bloom of red algae all across America, the graphic goes on to educate us to the fact that "if union membership had stayed at 1950's levels, the growth in income share of the top 10% would have been reduced by 50%."  Those figures and facts from Mr. Covert and Mr. Konczal quickly and simply illustrate just how tragically the union membership shrinkage over the last 50-60 years has damaged the American workforce in general.  Those damages are no greater anywhere than in the coalfields which were previously represented by the United Mine Workers of America.   

In addition to the above mentioned problems of leadership, the UMWA was facing that constant stream of Republican attacks on workers rights and organized labor from January 1981 to the present day.  Beginning with the administration of President Bill Clinton, with its populist focus, coal companies, coal brokers, and industrial coal consumers began a structured attack on the UMWA, federal safety and environmental regulators, and coal mine laborers in general.  The US steel industry was shrinking due to foreign competition and industrial coal sales were shrinking commensurately.  The coal companies needed someone to blame for their problems. So they invented the purely fictitious "War On Coal" and couched it as an organization which was intended to protect the interests of front line workers.  Coal companies and industrial coal consumers poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the "War On Coal" which was and always will be a lie.  There never was a "War On Coal".  The only war being waged at that time was a coal company financed "War Against Regulation And The Working Class".  The companies incorporated a non-profit organization they called "Friends Of Coal" in order to draw in secondary coal related businesses and their owners all across the country.  They sought membership in these efforts from the front line miners, local small business owners, politicians at all levels, and anyone else dumb enough to fall for the idea that positive and constructive labor, production, and environmental regulations by the Clinton and Obama Administrations constituted their purely fictional "War On Coal".

This industrial public relations warfare was also augmented with a broad ranging, well funded effort to elect and control politicians at all levels ranging from governors and senators down to city council members and magistrates.  If you were a candidate who was willing to parrot the propaganda of the coal industry and vote in their favor on issues ranging from a single city ordinance regulating the weight and speed of coal trucks all the way up to destroying federal environmental policy and law, you were their candidate and they would put money and influence into your campaign.  They managed to turn West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky in particular into Right Wing Radical Repugnican voting fiefdoms of their overall goal of destroying labor laws, public health care, black lung law, workers compensation, and environmental laws not just in the coal fields but nation wide if they could. 

As an adjunct to the "War On Coal" and as the political influence of that fictitious entity has spread, they have managed to play a major role in the election of disgraced coal operator Jim Justice as Governor of West Virginia.  Since his misguided election, he actually changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Repugnican and has fully endorsed the destructive crime spree of TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump. According to the Lexington Herald Leader, Justice owes more than $2.5 million dollars in taxes to at least five Kentucky counties in which he has previously mined coal.  Despite making public pronouncements that he will pay the debts, not even a minimal amount has been received.  In West Virginia, he has also been ordered to pay $9.4 million dollars on a defaulted loan.  That kind of public action, or inaction as the truth may be, makes Justice the ideal candidate for support from coal operators and TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump.  Despite his avowed loyalty to TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump, coal field employment continues to drop in West Virginia further adding to the problems of both union and nonunion miners.  During the time Justice has occupied the governor's office, the largest mine in West Virginia has shut down. 

The UMWA Pension Fund is in deep trouble and the union has sought congressional actions to save these critical payments to retired and disabled miners.  But the Repugnican congress has been far less than receptive to bailing out the pension fund.  The lives and survival of most of the retired and disabled miners hang in the balance and it is not likely that congress will take any decisive or permanent action to save the pensions since the miners are a relatively small and rapidly diminishing voting bloc.  The days when being a member of the United Mine Workers of America was a guarantee of lifelong safety, healthcare, and general well being are no more.  

The United Mine Workers Of America has not ceased to be a trade union.  But they have ceased to organize, enroll new members, or maintain a credible political profile.  They are not dead as an organization.  But they are on life support and not likely to survive.  Just as America has lost our last veterans from the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I, we will also lose our last union miner in the foreseeable future.  That, my friends is sad state of affair.