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

Making Organizational Policy Decisions

As issues arise that labor unions need to make decisions on, they must consult with either leadership or the entire membership to make a decision. Even deciding whether a matter can be determined by the leadership or a full vote by the members needs careful consideration, because even though unions celebrate themselves as exemplars of democracy, they also cannot put every small decision to a full vote. It would be inefficient in terms of time and money. Obviously, for the leaders of a union, making decisions about the organizational policy and goals is a primary duty, and if no one were doing this job, then the union would be accomplishing nothing. When a large decision must be made, the members need to be informed on the issue, and then after organizing the voting process, the votes must be tabulated. 

One example of an issue that deserved a vote from the full membership is when the UMWA was considering moving their headquarters. Directly below is an image that displays some of the informational materials that were provided before a vote like this was performed.


The above image from the Hearl Maxwell Collection shows how a group of members have gone about convincing their fellow members to approve the movement of the district's headquarters to another location. the purpose of this document is to inform the membership on the issue being voted upon, and the authors certainly support the idea of moving the headquarters. They make a logical appeal with the mention of the cost savings provided by being able to move local unions into the district headquarters and by providing a simple (and democratic) solution that allows the building to be paid for by charging each member only 25 cents per month for a year. They also, however, appeal to the ideology of the organization in their first point. The businesses and citizens of Arma are "in accord with the principles and have the respect for our organization," meaning that any union member who is also aligned with the goals of the union will want to move their headquarters to Arma to be among like-minded and respectful people. This is a common theme among communication between the union members. When discussing almost any issue that involves non-union members, there is always a concern for whether that person or organization is supportive of organized labor. The following image is a tabulation of the results of a similar vote.


This tabulation provides an example of what a district-wide vote looks like. This image has also been taken from the Hearl Maxwell collection, and while it was on the issue of moving the district headquarters at an earlier time, the tabulation of the decision to move to Arma or not would look similar. Each of these local unions took the time at their local meeting to vote on the issue then reported the results to the district representative. The local results were transferred into this chart to create a total of every district member's vote.

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