Miners' Convention. Thursday Morning [&c] May 16, 1912
![Miners' Convention. Thursday Morning [&c] May 16,](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/585/039/1683039585.0.x.jpg)
- [Wilkes-Barre, PA: UMWA, 1912]
[Wilkes-Barre, PA: UMWA, 1912]. Quarto. Cloth-backed card stab-bound wrappers; 327pp. Carbon typescript, printed rectos-only on thin bond. Occasional chips and edge-tears to covers and contents; still complete and sound.
Complete stenographic transcript of a special joint meeting of the three “anthracite” districts of the UMWA and representatives of the American Coal Operators' Association, held in Wilkes Barre PA over seven days, from May 16 to May 23, 1912, to establish a new union contract. The principals in attendance were W.D. Van Horn, President of District 11 UMWA (Terre Haute) and Hugh Shirkie, Vice-President, Indiana Coal Operators' Association, co-Chairs; Frank J. Hayes, at this time national Vice-President of the UMWA; P.H. Penna, Secretary of the Indiana Operators' Association; and Charles Fox, Vice-President (later President) of the Indiana State Federation of Labor.
This special joint meeting was called by both the UMWA and the Coal Operators Association in an attempt to resolve a number of contentious issues the parties had failed to resolve at a national meeting earlier in the month. These included increased rates for machine mining; compensation to miners for lost time repairing slate falls; weekly paychecks, and, as one would predict, a demand for increases in the standard pay scale. Most of these issues appear to have been agreed upon by the end of this meeting, but the matter of scale remained unresolved upon adjournment, with the threat of a strike looming.
Being a verbatim stenographic transcript, the document provides a great deal of valuable insight into the collective bargaining methods of the UMWA during this especially turbulent period (the violent Paint Creek - Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia was ongoing during these negotiations, though not referred to in the transcript). Aside from much predictable procedural detail, the document includes a number of quite colorful pro-union soliloquies on the part of W.D. Van Horn, representative of the Indiana anthracite miners, and Frank Hayes, Vice-President of the International Union, as well as numerous first-hand testimonies from miner-delegates. There are frequent sharp exchanges between Union representatives and the Operators, in particular Indiana Secretary P.H. Penna, who had clearly come to Wilkes-Barre in a state of pique, which only became more pronounced as negotiations prooceeded. The issues left unresolved at this meeting were apparently agreed upon in time to produce a two-year contract in 1912, but lingering discontent over wages and the effects of machine mining would contribute to large-scale labor actions in the years immediately following, most notably the Colorado Coalfield Wars of 1914.
We find no catalogued record of this document in OCLC; it does not appear to have ever been published for wider distribution.
Complete stenographic transcript of a special joint meeting of the three “anthracite” districts of the UMWA and representatives of the American Coal Operators' Association, held in Wilkes Barre PA over seven days, from May 16 to May 23, 1912, to establish a new union contract. The principals in attendance were W.D. Van Horn, President of District 11 UMWA (Terre Haute) and Hugh Shirkie, Vice-President, Indiana Coal Operators' Association, co-Chairs; Frank J. Hayes, at this time national Vice-President of the UMWA; P.H. Penna, Secretary of the Indiana Operators' Association; and Charles Fox, Vice-President (later President) of the Indiana State Federation of Labor.
This special joint meeting was called by both the UMWA and the Coal Operators Association in an attempt to resolve a number of contentious issues the parties had failed to resolve at a national meeting earlier in the month. These included increased rates for machine mining; compensation to miners for lost time repairing slate falls; weekly paychecks, and, as one would predict, a demand for increases in the standard pay scale. Most of these issues appear to have been agreed upon by the end of this meeting, but the matter of scale remained unresolved upon adjournment, with the threat of a strike looming.
Being a verbatim stenographic transcript, the document provides a great deal of valuable insight into the collective bargaining methods of the UMWA during this especially turbulent period (the violent Paint Creek - Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia was ongoing during these negotiations, though not referred to in the transcript). Aside from much predictable procedural detail, the document includes a number of quite colorful pro-union soliloquies on the part of W.D. Van Horn, representative of the Indiana anthracite miners, and Frank Hayes, Vice-President of the International Union, as well as numerous first-hand testimonies from miner-delegates. There are frequent sharp exchanges between Union representatives and the Operators, in particular Indiana Secretary P.H. Penna, who had clearly come to Wilkes-Barre in a state of pique, which only became more pronounced as negotiations prooceeded. The issues left unresolved at this meeting were apparently agreed upon in time to produce a two-year contract in 1912, but lingering discontent over wages and the effects of machine mining would contribute to large-scale labor actions in the years immediately following, most notably the Colorado Coalfield Wars of 1914.
We find no catalogued record of this document in OCLC; it does not appear to have ever been published for wider distribution.