Word: umw
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...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...
...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...