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

Conclusion

In conclusion, the United Mine Workers of America was an organization that met the needs of its members by first organizing itself to function as an entity in terms of acquiring membership, electing officials, creating the policies and laws of the organization, and by acquiring and controlling the spending of money. After the formation of the union and the establishment of systems for meeting these basic organizational needs, the union was able to begin performing the duties it was created to perform: collectively bargaining through strikes and boycotts, organizing meetings of its membership for them to meet and discuss relevant current events, and upholding the laws that the organization created. In the process of performing those duties, the organization spread knowledge to inform its membership of how to be safer workers and how to improve their skills so as to be an invaluable employee. Along the way, sometimes leaders needed to publish information in order to rally their supporting members around them against external --or sometimes internal-- threats. Finally, in some cases, union leaders needed to write fliers and letters to the nation's leaders in an attempt to affect national policy.

While this Scalar book ended on the frightening note of a newspaper reporting violence and scare tactics from the union workers, the documents of the Hearl Maxwell collection display far more instances of the union fulfilling its intended purpose of protecting its workers than the one instance of an external party expressing fear. That is not to say that the newspaper clipping was spreading false information, but in the context of the documents being looked at here, district 14 of the UMWA met the needs of its membership while bettering working conditions for all of the miners of southeastern Kansas. 

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