Today in Labor History February 12, 1880: John L. Lewis was born. He was president of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) from 1920-1960, and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In 1935, he pulled the UMWA from the American Federation of Labor (and punched out Carpenters Union President William Hutcheson in the process) when the AFL refused to endorse industrial unionism. Lewis then formed the CIO, which organized millions of unskilled, mass production workers into unions in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1920s, he used red-baiting, stolen elections and violence to expel the communists from the UMWA. Yet he refused to make his officials take the non-Communism oath required by the Taft-Hartley bill. Canadian labor leader J.B. McLachlan called Lewis a traitor to the working class.

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Today in Labor History January 22, 1890: The Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Miners Union merged to form the United Mine Workers of America. Their initial goals were improved mine safety, impendence from company stores, and collective bargaining. In 1898, they won the 8-hour day. By the 1930s, the UMW had over 800,000 members. However, their history was filled with bloody strikes. On April 3, 1891, deputized members of the National Guard killed at least 10 striking UMW members in the Morewood massacre. The cops killed 19 striking UMW members in the Lattimer Massacre, September 10, 1897. Eight UMW members and five private detectives died in the Battle of Virden, in October 1898.

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