Carbon County, USA : miners for democracy in Utah and the West

Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in lobbying power, their membership in traditional industries is on the decline and their influence continues to diminish. Only a generation ago, large unions such as the United Mine Workers of America held greater political and economic capital and inspired millions beyond their immediate ranks. In this book, Christian Wright explores the complex history of the UMWA and coal mining in the West over a fifty-year period of the twentieth century, concentrating on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Wright emphasizes their experience during the 1970s, which saw the rise and passing of American workers’ most successful postwar effort to internally reform a major labor organization: the Miners for Democracy movement. As Wright details how and why Miners for Democracy and nonunion mining raced to control coal’s future, he also touches on the UMWA’s regional origins during and immediately after the New Deal, when cracks in union efficacy and benefit programs began to appear. Using sophisticated demography, Wright not only details how miners’ racial, gender, and generational identities shaped their changing relationships to mining and organized labor, he also illustrates the place of nonunion miners, antiunion employers, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and women in transforming “Carbon County, USA.” Drawing on a variety of primary sources, Wright provides evidence for organized labor’s continuing significance and value while effectively illuminating its mounting frustrations during a relatively recent chapter in the history of Utah and the United States. Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in lobbying power, their membership in traditional industries is on the decline and their influence continues to diminish. Only a generation ago, large unions such as the United Mine Workers of America held greater political and economic capital and inspired millions beyond their immediate ranks. In this book, Christian Wright explores the complex history of the UMWA and coal mining in the West over a fifty-year period of the twentieth century, concentrating on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Wright emphasizes their experience during the 1970s, which saw the rise and passing of American workers' most successful postwar effort to internally reform a major labor organization: the Miners for Democracy movement. As Wright details how and why Miners for Democracy and nonunion mining raced to control coal's future, he also touches on the UMWA's regional origins during and immediately after the New Deal, when cracks in union efficacy and benefit programs began to appear. Using sophisticated demography, Wright not only details how miners' racial, gender, and generational identities shaped their changing relationships to mining and organized labor, he also illustrates the place of nonunion miners, antiunion employers, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and women in transforming 'Carbon County, USA.'0Drawing on a variety of primary sources, Wright provides evidence for organized labor's continuing significance and value while effectively illuminating its mounting frustrations during a relatively recent chapter in the history of Utah and the United States Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in lobbying power, their membership in traditional industries is on the decline and their influence continues to diminish. Only a generation ago, large unions such as the United Mine Workers of America held greater political and economic capital and inspired millions beyond their immediate ranks. In this book, Christian Wright explores the complex history of the UMWA and coal mining in the West over a fifty-year period of the twentieth century, concentrating on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Wright emphasizes their experience during the 1970s, which saw the rise and passing of American workers' most successful postwar effort to internally reform a major labor organization: the Miners for Democracy movement. As Wright details how and why Miners for Democracy and nonunion mining raced to control coal's future, he also touches on the UMWA's regional origins during and immediately after the New Deal, when cracks in union efficacy and benefit programs began to appear. Using sophisticated demography, Wright not only details how miners' racial, gender, and generational identities shaped their changing relationships to mining and organized labor, he also illustrates the place of nonunion miners, antiunion employers, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and women in transforming "Carbon County, USA"--Publisher's description "Whither the union movement? is a question of old enough relevance in the U.S. to now seem almost anachronistic. Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in political power, they and their potency are certainly diminished. With growing concerns about the direction of national politics, increasing income and power inequities, and signs of a receding middle class and increasing social division into haves and have nots, one can hear murmurs of union revival, but polls continue to show that many Americans distrust unions or consider them irrelevant to a modern service economy. Christian Wright digests what happened to one important American union, the United Mine Workers of America, over a fifty-year period, with particular focus on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Derived from his much more limited in scope but award-winning master's thesis at Northern Arizona University, this book manuscript places that story in a broader context of changes in the union movement and the nation. It draws on a variety of primary sources, including original research in the UMWA archives at Penn State and multiple oral history collections"--Provided by publisher Contents 5 Preface 7 Acknowledgments 9 Abbreviations 16 Prologue 17 Introduction 27 Part I 47 1. The UMWA at High Tide 49 2. Twilight of the New Deal 85 3. Collapse 105 Part II 143 4. Prophets 145 5. Carbon County, USA 180 6. Hell or High Water 220 Part III 245 7. El Movimiento 247 8. A Quiet Revolution 270 9. Unbridled 299 Epilogue 322 Appendix A: Chronology 336 Appendix B: UMWA District 22 Locals, ca. 1983 351 Appendix C: Historic UMWA Locals in Utah 353 Abbreviations Used in the Bibliography and Notes 354 Bibliography 356 Notes 372 Index 430