Word: umw
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Working with little or no equipment, the truck mines soon found that they could not pay union wages and still compete with the mechanized mines. While these operators usually signed a UMW contract, the union consented to a "sweetheart agreement," that essentially allowed the operator to pay what he could for wages as long as he paid the 40 cents per ton royalty. But as the market and price for coal dropped, the "sweetheart agreements" turned sour. Deterioration in wages was accepted by the men as long as they retained their welfare benefits. About two years ago, however, the smaller...
...last fall practically no truck mine was contributing to the welfare fund and the fund suddenly revoked the welfare cards of all miners working in non-royalty-paying mines. Loss of the cards meant the end of free hospital care, an extremely important benefit for miners. The UMW's Miners Memorial Hospital Association had built four modern hospitals in eastern Kentucky which provided free care for the miners and their families. Access to these hospitals was forbidden to men without the cards. Shortly after withdrawing the welfare cards the fund announced that it was closing the hospitals as of July...
These actions provided the catalyst that released all the accumulated bitterness of the past decade in violent protest. Deciding the union had let them down, the men organized a wildcat strike against both the UMW and the operators. Bands of pickets descended on mines throughout the territory demanding that the men working inside join the fight. Most came willingly, but others, thinking that nothing could be done, were convinced only by threats of violence. Picketers were shot, mines dynamited, homes blown-up, and cold fear swept Floyd and Perry counties...
...down, there was talk that a movement to "stop" him was forming. Word spread in the press that United Mine Workers' ex-President John L. Lewis would never forgive Kennedy for his role in passing the 1959 Landrum-Griffin labor-reform bill (called Kennedy-Landrum-Griffin in the UMW Journal). And West Virginia's freshman U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, a strong Lyndon Johnson man, announced openly: "If you are for Adlai Stevenson, Senator Stuart Symington, Senator Johnson or John Doe, this primary may be your last chance to stop Kennedy. I'm voting for Humphrey...