Democratic Miners: Work and Labor Relations in the Anthracite Coal Industry, 1875-1925.

Labor unrest in the anthracite coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania was legion and legendary. The draft protests and strikes of miners during the Civil War; the guerrilla warfare of the Molly Maguires in the 1870s; the ongoing organizing drives of the United Mine Workers (UMW) at the turn of the twentieth century; the great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902; major strikes in 1922 and 1943; and countless local spontaneous job actions: no wonder that the region garnered such a reputation for staunch labor activism and solidarity. Perry Blatz, however, complicates the portrait. He shows that trade unionism gained only a tenuous foothold in the Pennsylvania anthracite fields and that conflict there cut across various axes: between workers and local managers, the UMW and the railroad companies that owned and leased the coal lands, and workers and their union.

Blatz lays the complications to the very complexity of mining in the region. Nature played a role; the varying pitches of the deep coal veins made for different mining techniques and production regimes. The area had large-scale operations as well as petty ventures. Working arrangements varied widely as did work loads, stints and compensation systems (danger, accidents and injuries and fatalities on the job, though, were a constant as was the absence of assured relief for families of miners thus victimized). Hard anthracite coal, unlike bituminous, also entailed intensive above-ground processing (in coal breakers) and a diverse work force comprised most operations. The very variousness of the trade presented great obstacles to the organizing of workers in the region; these obstacles were more difficult to surmount, Blatz infers, than the deep ethnic and cultural divides manifest among the men in the coal fields. Adding to the difficulties was the relative concentration in ownership and the united front established by anthracite executives. The UMW had somewhat easier times in reaching regional trade agreements in bituminous coal areas (union contracts there, in fact, helped stabilize competitive conditions among the operators).

Although the title of the book indicates a starting point of 1875, the narrative begins in the 1880s (the author surprisingly has little to say about the Molly Maguires). Blatz does document the failure of Knights of Labor organizers to build locals and the initial problems faced by the United Mine Workers in the mid-1890s (slack work and the hold foreman had on work assignments proved specific obstacles to organizing). An attack by sheriff deputies on a group of striking young immigrant miners that left nineteen dead in the town of Lattimer in 1897 presented opportunities for the UMW. The next two years saw numerous job actions - mostly spontaneous - that paved the way for the union to call an area-wide strike in 1900. Led by John Mitchell, the UMW sought a regional agreement abolishing company stores, standardizing procedures for affixing compensation, increasing rates of pay, and eliminating various fees and penalties charged miners. Mitchell, during the strike, prevailed on J.P. Morgan, whose financial interests ran deep in the area, to convince the railroad coal companies to sign a contract.

The strike ended in a stalemate - no agreement was reached but some owners acceded to the UMW's demands. Mitchell called the strike off, but walkouts continued, creating a pattern where the UMW faced as much trouble controlling the rank and file as management. The stage was set for a larger confrontation.

Miners in union locals seized the initiative again two years later. Turning aside UMW President Mitchell's pleas to avoid striking, the locals one by one voted to participate in a regional walkout. One hundred and fifty thousand mine workers would then close the mines for five months, threatening the nation's industry, commerce and home heating. Blatz provides a thorough portrait of the 1902 strike and the involvement of J.P. Morgan, the National Civic Federation, and ultimately President Theodore Roosevelt, whose appointment of an Anthracite Coal Commission to resolve the dispute was unprecedented. The Commission's recommendations led to an uneasy truce: neither union recognition nor a contract was firmly established, but new standards on reduced hours and pay rates were mandated and a conciliation board created to deal with ongoing grievances. A venerable issue remained unresolved: the regularized provision of coal cars to miners, and the weighing and determination of the quality of the coal mined - in other words, what a miner would fairly be paid for his day's labor.

Blatz's greatest contribution is to provide a twenty year history of labor relations in anthracite under the arrangements established by the 1902 Anthracite Coal Commission; unlike his early chapters, this is unchartered scholarly territory. The history he renders is not neat. It includes ongoing commission and conciliation board rulings; new awards and improvements in compensation and working conditions, especially during World War I; threats of strikes, formal strikes and many spontaneous job actions; but also the adamant refusal of the operators officially to recognize the UMW and reach and sign regional contracts. The twenty-year period after the strike of 1902 was also marked by loose allegiances of mine workers to the UMW. Since the union never achieved recognition and such privileges as dues check-offs, membership and dues payment remained voluntary; membership fluctuated as a result. The locals of the UMW also upheld principles of democracy and local autonomy and did not march in step with national officials.

Scholars in search of details about labor relations in anthracite coal in the first two decades of the twentieth century will find Blatz's study extremely useful, but other readers may find this a tough book to finish. The manuscript lacks an overarching argument or theme and at times appears directionless; why the author glides over and even skips certain topics (for example, the 1922 strike) and then bogs down in the utter detail of others remains unclear. Without adequate reference to other labor history studies, the findings of the author are also never placed in greater perspective; his treatment of government arbitration during and after the 1902 strike could have referred and added to the recent growing literature on labor and the state. Finally, in explaining the militancy of miners, their seeming disregard for company and union officials alike, Blatz alludes to their youth, immigrant status and "habit of insurgency." (p. 259) Yet, his study never descends to the level of the miners' communities properly to understand their behaviors. A social history of Pennsylvania anthracite miners in the early twentieth century remains to be written.

Walter Licht University of Pennsylvania