The Anthracite Coal Strike was one of the largest and most significant labor disputes between 1900 and 1930.
The strike, which marked the culmination of the United Mine Workers of America’s (UMWA) attempt to organize Pennsylvania coal miners, lasted five and a half months and finally was settled by a special commission appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Prior to the strike, there had been numerous attempts to organize the nation’s anthracite coal miners. Yet, despite widespread support for organized labor among miners, these early unions proved unable to secure legally binding contracts. In 1890 miners in Pennsylvania formed the UMWA and initially had considerable success organizing the region’s bituminous miners. For a variety of reasons, organizing anthracite miners proved more difficult. Anthracite mines had a greater variety of job categories, operated on a larger scale, and had greater ethnic diversity among workers. Their owners were wealthier and more vehemently antiunion.
The UMWA had, without success, tried to organize anthracite miners on several occasions. In 1897, it initiated another organizing effort and quickly succeeded in recruiting new members. Employee opposition, however, remained intense and the organizing drive came to a head. In April and May of 1902, UMWA president John Mitchell met with mine operators and railroad executives to avoid an industry-wide walkout. When they refused to grant any concessions or recognize the UMWA as a legitimate union, miners voted 57 percent to 43 percent to strike. The strike idled over 140,000 miners. As it lingered on and the nation’s supply of coal dwindled, President Roosevelt intervened. He appointed an Anthracite Coal Strike Committee to resolve the differences between the union and financier
J. P. Morgan, who was the target of the strike.
Roosevelt, who was establishing a reputation as a foe of business monopolies, and Ohio’s Senator Marcus Hanna, who wanted to gain organized labor’s support for the Republican Party, saw the 1902 strike as an opportunity to rebuke coal and railroad operators. Roosevelt ordered striking workers back into the mines while the Anthracite Coal Strike Committee gathered information about the dispute. After five months of deliberation, the committee called for a 10 percent pay increase and a reduction in the workday from 10 hours to nine. At the same time, the committee refused to force mine operators to recognize the union and allowed them to maintain an open shop. From a larger perspective, the outcome of the 1902 Anthracite Coal Strike was a break from past practices. Although the committee’s ruling was far from a complete victory for the UMWA, the president’s refusal to use federal government troops to break the strike or undermine the union marked a change in policy toward organized labor.
See also labor and labor movement; mining industry; National Civic Federation.
Further reading: John M. Laslett, The United Mine Workers of America: A Model of Industrial Solidarity? (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996).
—Robert Gordon
Further reading: William H. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1961).
World History
