Coal Mining in the United

¶ … Coal mining in the United States [...] reasons for coal mining companies to provide benefits to their employees. Coal miners have one of the most dangerous and demanding jobs in the nation. Coal mining has been going on in the United States since the nineteenth century, but miners did not receive health and pension benefits until 1946, largely due to the efforts of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union and its president, John L. Lewis. The benefits were partially due to social pressures, but mostly due to the activism of the union and a miners' strike that threatened to affect the entire nation.

The UMWA formed in Ohio in 1890, and one of its goals was "to seek favorable legislation for the protection of miners' health and welfare."

The union struggled to gain support for health and pension benefits for decades, and even stopped negotiations during the Second World War. However, after the war, they stepped up their efforts to gain benefits for coal miners. Their Web site notes, "When the National Bituminous Wage Conference convened in early 1946, a health and welfare fund for miners was the union's top priority."

The UMWA was at the heart of the fight for benefits, but several other matters all combined to bring the issue of health and benefits to the public and government's eyes.

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a commission on health and welfare matters around the country. The head of the committee had ties to coal mining, and had many health and safety ideas about making mining safer. This helped bolster the union's cause for creating health and pension benefits for miners. In addition, in 1946, a photographer named Russell W. Lee completed a photographic exhibition of the nation's coalfields, indicating the health and safety issues at America's coal mines. President Harry S. Truman commissioned the study after a 1946 mining strike that was driven by health and safety concerns. This exhibition helped bring national attention to the issues facing coal miners and their families, and ultimately led to the awarding of health and pension benefits to miners.

The government actually seized the mines under the War-Labor Disputes Act because of ongoing strikes throughout Appalachia. The coal miners were angry about the lack of benefits they received, and they struck. The UMWA signed a deal with the government that would require coal companies to offer health and pension benefits to employees, and this fund through the union also created a major change in health care throughout the coal mining regions of the country. A college professor notes, "The UMWA Fund built eight hospitals in Appalachia, established numerous clinics and recruited young doctors to practice in rural coal field areas."

A mining safety and health act was also passed in 1969 that addressed the health issue of black lung, which is still a largely untreated problem in the industry.

The 1946 strike that precipitated the coal benefits fund began in April 1946, when UMWA president John L. Lewis called a strike of over 350,000 coal miners, joining many thousands that were already on strike. President Truman authorized government seizure of the mines, and the strike was so vast it threatened to bring the entire nation to a halt. It was under these terms that the mine owners finally gave in and agreed to start the pension and benefit fund for union miners.

The UMWA Web site notes, "After a week of negotiations, the historic Krug Lewis agreement was announced and the strike ended. It created a welfare and retirement fund to make payments to miners and their dependents and survivors in cases of sickness, permanent disability, death or retirement, and other welfare purposes determined by the trustees."

A royalty on coal production financed the fund, and it was administered by a trustee from the government, one from the union, and one from the mine owners. The mines were returned to the owners and work continued.

The mine owners did not give in to the union out of care for their employees. Another writer notes, "Prior to 1946, employers controlled miners' health care through two wage-deduction, or 'check-off' schemes. The first provided office care via a company doctor and the second offered hospitalization, but both were inadequate."

President Truman did not deal with the UMWA because he had a love for labor, either. He feared that a prolonged strike would hurt a nation recovering from World War II, and so, he signed the fund into action with the union president.

The UMWA was crucial in settling the strike and getting benefits for the miners and at the heart of the organization was its president, John L. Lewis. Lewis had been the head of the organization for decades, and it was a powerful union. Another writer notes, "During the early 1920s, the United Mine Workers of America was by far the largest and most powerful union in the United States."

Lewis has been called an autocratic and despotic leader, who clashed with industry activists and his own staff, but had a fierce loyalty to the miners. Lewis worked in the mines when he was a teenager, so he understood the working conditions and health risks. He became UMWA president in 1919 and held the office until 1960. Soon after he became president, he called the first major strike of coal miners, and over 400,000 miners went out on strike. Author Pope continues, "To Lewis, the union was not a vehicle for worker freedom or power, but an instrument for the achievement of higher standards of living."