Workingmen's Benevolent Association of Schuylkill County
The Workingmen's Benevolent Association was a 19th century labor organization that consisted mainly of coal-miners. It was organized in 1868 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, with John Siney as president. In 1869, the organization called a strike of coal-miners from May 5 to June 16. There were some gains resulting from the strike.[1] The union was organized in an area of Molly Maguires activity.
Strikes were called in 1868, 1869, and 1871.[2]
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[edit] The organization is transformed into a national entity
John Siney also headed[3] the Miners' and Laborers' Benevolent Association. The Miners' and Laborers' Benevolent Association was formed in 1870, and in 1872 it became a national union in the bituminous fields of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Michigan. The Miners' and Laborers' Benevolent Association was crushed in 1875.[4] Pennsylvania Industrialist Franklin B. Gowen forced a strike in January 1875 that came to be known as the Long Strike.[5] The strike lasted six months, and resulted in the destruction of the union.
[edit] Predecessor
An earlier organization, the Workingmen's Benevolent Society of Carbon County was organized in the Schuylkill region in 1864.[6]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Coal Mines and Coal Miners: The Story of a Great Industry and the Men Who Work In It, I.W.W. Educational Bureau (1923). Chapter 10, The Struggle Towards Organization Among The Coal-Mine Workers http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/pamphlets/coal/coal_10.html Retrieved May 8, 2007
- ^ Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, page 178.
- ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/coal-mining-and-organized-labor Retrieved May 8, 2007.
- ^ Coal Mines and Coal Miners: The Story of a Great Industry and the Men Who Work In It, I.W.W. Educational Bureau (1923). Chapter 10, The Struggle Towards Organization Among The Coal-Mine Workers http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/pamphlets/coal/coal_10.html Retrieved May 8, 2007.
- ^ Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, page 182.
- ^ Coal Mines and Coal Miners: The Story of a Great Industry and the Men Who Work In It, I.W.W. Educational Bureau (1923). Chapter 10, The Struggle Towards Organization Among The Coal-Mine Workers http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/pamphlets/coal/coal_10.html Retrieved May 8, 2007.
