Labor Rhetoric and Class Hierarchy
In labor rhetoric, the focus always is on the workers themselves, whether it is about the conditions they live in, how they want to improve their lives, or how they want the public to see them. In the image above, the two words with the largest connection to “workers” are “district” and “Lewis.” This makes sense as the union workers first identity with what district they work under and then to the United Mine Workers of America, which Lewis was the president of at the time. However, Lewis is connected to “operators,” meaning the men who own the mines, and this would cause tension because he had to listen to both sides of the cases that the unions would put forth. Alexander Howat, on the other hand, is attached to “district,” which means that, theoretically, he would have a closer relationship with the workers than Lewis, who is connected to them in a general sense. Lewis has no connections to districts in these writings, so Howat could have a better understanding of the conditions of the men than Lewis would. Both argued for the rights of the miners and wanted new regulations and laws to protect them, but the word “law” is not attached
The “workers” in these documents are coal miners, but the word “coal” is not directly attached to them. “Coal” is attached to the “workers” only through “Lewis.” Lewis shares a second connection to coal through the “operators.” This connection indicates that coal and Lewis himself are on a different class level that the workers, because they share no direct connection to either. This could cause some tension between Lewis and the workers, because their idea of class is shaped by the environment in which they live (Hoover 35). Even though the workers are the ones who dig the coal, working with it on a daily basis, and they create the profit for the operators, the workers are left out.
