Word: umw
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Shenandoah Valley and the mountains surrounding it are tied primarily to Appalachia. The violent battle for the leadership of the United Mine Workers (UMW) last summer, the black lung disease, and all the problems of Appalachian poverty present a different set of problems for a political candidate entering the area. For years the mountain people had appeared satisfied to the politicians in Richmond, but food stamps and a sellout union are no longer acceptable to them a decade after John F. Kennedy focused attention on the area's problems in his West Virginia primary...
...Howell will once again have to close all the mines in Floyd County. This may not prove easy. Men now working for about $15 dollars a day are afraid that joining a strike will endanger their jobs, and others feel the situation is hopeless. Bernard Howell, president of the UMW local, is one of the men with the later view. Although he worked with Lee to organize the wildcat pickets last fall "because our union let us down," he now thinks it impossible to support another non-union strike. Even if money for a strike could be obtained, Bernard...
...When the UMW produced its 1950 wage contract, Reed decided he could not meet its terms. Closing his rail mines, he leased his land to truck operators, thinking this would be the best way to produce the maximum amount of coal and jobs. The truck mines, he explains, while not able to pay union wages, "do provide a living for men who otherwise would not have a job." In fact, he is certain that a man shovelling coal in a truck mine is earning better wages than unskilled or semi-skilled workers in other industries...
Unlike Howell, who feels the need of union support and blames the UMW for "letting us down," Gibson thinks he must organize the country without the UMW and then let the UMW assume control. "If the UMW authorized this strike they would be too deep in law suits," Gibson says...
Contrasting sharply with the unhappiness and poverty in Hazard and McDowell is nearby Wheelwright, Ky., and perhaps this contrast is a stimulus to the agitation. Wheelwright is owned by Inland Steel, which operates a large, highly mechanized rail mine. Inland miners work under a UMW contract and live in a town benevolently managed by Inland. Except for the fact that a private company rather than a State is the economic planner, Wheelwright closely resembles a model for a socialist city. Comfortable houses are rented to the miners at rates (about $25 a month) which do not even cover maintenance...