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The United Mine Workers of America as an Exemplar of Union Activity

Coal Mining Video

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Why did the miners of Southeastern Kansas need a union? The purpose of labor unions is to improve conditions for workers. Kaufman explains that unions served the purpose of serving the economic interests of workers by arguing for better wages, better working conditions, and "lowering transaction costs of market exchange" (455). Essentially, lowering transaction costs of market exchange means reducing the cost of goods for the workers to buy by limiting extraneous costs such as transportation, protection of goods, and taxes among a variety of other possible costs (Wang). In addition to the economic purpose of labor unions, there is a political aspect as well, which includes working both at a company level but also at a state or national governance level to reform the democratic systems therein to give workers more rights or to better enforce the rights already given to them (Kaufman 455). Unions can achieve these goals because workers organize together to be able to collectively bargain (Kaufman 456). Reynolds describes this process as occurring because of the concept of supply and demand; unions were restricting the supply of labor to only employers that met their requests, meaning that (in theory) by controlling supply they can control the price. Paying higher wages is better than having no workers.

While this might almost make the labor unions seem like the "bad guys" extorting money out of companies, realizing what the conditions of work were for laborers before labor unions helps modern Americans understand that labor unions were in reality protecting their members. The following video is a video created by the Delaware and Lackawanna Coal Companies to show the public the conditions in the mines. Although the video is obviously created to show many of the dangers of coal mining, this Scalar book will be annotating it to show the dangers. To see a more in depth video that explains the dangers of mining on its own, this video is a good starting place; however, the short video contained in this page is meant to be a quicker version of the same information. Another video that might provide some additional support to this is contained here. This video provides another perspective on the need. There was a monopoly controlling the work and the output of the product in mines throughout America, and the union was the best method of fighting that. Additionally, the miners were a diverse group of people, many of them not speaking the same language. The union brought these diverse men together and united them together in the cause of working for better wages and conditions.