Coal Strike of 1902
Coal miners in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1900
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| Date | 1902 |
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| Location | Pennsylvania, United States |
| Also known as | Anthracite coal strike |
The Coal strike of 1902 (also known as the anthracite coal strike) was a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays and the recognition of their union. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to major US cities. (At that time, residences were typically heated with anthracite or "hard" coal, which produces higher heat value and less smoke than "soft" or bituminous coal.)
President Theodore Roosevelt became involved and set up a fact-finding commission that suspended the strike. The strike never resumed, as the miners received a 10% wage increase and reduced workdays from ten to nine hours; the owners got a higher price for coal, and did not recognize the trade union as a bargaining agent. It was the first labor dispute in which the US federal government intervened as a neutral arbitrator.
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) had won a sweeping victory in the 1897 strike by the soft-coal (bituminous coal) miners in the Midwest, winning significant wage increases. It grew from 10,000 to 115,000 members. A number of small strikes took place in the anthracite district from 1899 to 1901, by which the labor union gained experience and unionized more workers. The 1899 strike in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, demonstrated that the unions could win a strike directed against a subsidiary of one of the large railroads.
It hoped to make similar gains in 1900, but found the operators, who had established an oligopoly through concentration of ownership after drastic fluctuations in the market for anthracite, to be far more determined opponents than it had anticipated. The owners refused to meet or to arbitrate with the union; the union struck on September 17, 1900, with results that surprised even the union, as miners of all different nationalities and ethnicities walked out in support of the union.
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