Word: lewises
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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"At first," Lewis wrote the U.M.W. membership with the familiar flourish, "your wages were low, your hours long, your labor perilous, your health disregarded, your children without opportunity, your union weak, your fellow citizens and public representatives indifferent to your wrongs." But John L., born in Lucas, Iowa, Feb. 12...
Up in Wages. Over his 40 years as U.M.W. head, he battled with presidents, congresses, courts, coal owners, and colleagues. Often his battles obscured the victory. Said Lewis to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under whose benevolent New Deal he founded the C.I.O. and deployed the sit-down strike: "Nobody can...
But through the late Truman years and the Eisenhower years, Lewis showed labor statesmanship of the highest order. He continued to press for the wage increases that brought average U.M.W. pay from $6 a day in 1920 to $11.75 after the war to $24.25 today. He fought for, got, and...
Down in Number. Lewis' most forward-looking contribution to the U.S. was his acceptance of labor-saving machinery for an industry that was in decline. In the teeth of competition from natural gas and oil, Lewis wrote the contracts to help the coal owners, came out unequivocally for automation...
In his letter of resignation to his miners, John L. Lewis, two months short of 80, summed up his life's, work in what were his least controversial words. "I shall hope," he said simply, "that each of you will believe that through the years I have been faithful...