Western Federation of Miners
| Full name | Western Federation of Miners |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1893 |
| Date dissolved | 1967 (1993 in Sudbury, Ontario) |
| Merged into | United Steelworkers, Canadian Auto Workers |
| Affiliation | Industrial Workers of the World, American Federation of Labor, Western Labor Union, Congress of Industrial Organizations |
| Key people | Charles Moyer (President), "Big Bill" Haywood |
| Country | United States of America, Canada |
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district in 1903–04, and has been called the Colorado Labor Wars. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, but left that organization several years later.
The WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal and helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935. The Mine Mill union was expelled from the CIO in 1950 during the post-war red scare for refusing to shed its communist leadership. After spending years fighting off efforts by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to raid its membership, Mine Mill and the CAW merged in 1967 and were able to retain the name Mine Mill Local 598.
After hard rock miners made sporadic and often unsuccessful efforts to organize during previous decades, the Western Federation of Miners was created in 1893. The federation was formed with the merger of several miners' unions representing copper miners from Butte, Montana, silver and lead miners from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, gold miners from Colorado and hard rock miners from South Dakota, and Utah.
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