Anthracite Labor Wars: Tenancy, Italians, and Organized Crime in the Northern Coalfield of Northeastern Pennsylvania 1897-1959 by Robert P. Wolensky and William A. Hastie, Sr. (review)

In January 1959, when workers at the Knox Mine Company tunneled too close to the Susquehanna River near Pittston, Pennsylvania, millions of gallons of water broke through and poured into the network of mines that existed in the region, killing twelve men and effectively ending the anthracite coal industry. The disaster was directly attributable to mismanagement; the mining company had ordered its miners to dig into coal seams that were under the river in violation of the law and basic safety standards. The investigations that followed the accident uncovered a web of corruption involving several area mining operations and the district leaders in the United Mine Workers Union (umwa). “In one of the darkest episodes in northern-field history,” Robert P. Wolensky and William Hastie observe, “an astonishingly broad and entrenched culture of corruption had been exposed.” (180) Their book provides a richly detailed history of that culture of corruption. For scholars of labour history the book offers an important new window into labour racketeering in the anthracite coal mining industry.

Wolensky and Hastie argue that the practice of subcontracting played a central role in this story. By the turn of the 20th century, coal mining companies seeking to boost their profits struggled against a unionized work force that stubbornly clung to a traditional understanding of how much coal a miner should load. This stint, as labour historians since David Montgomery have referred to it, was two to three coal cars a day. Bituminous (i.e. soft coal) mining operations were able to adopt various kinds of mechanization to circumvent such restrictions and boost productivity, but the distinctive geology of hard coal made it impossible for anthracite mine companies to use the same tactics. Instead subcontracting offered employers a way to boost productivity and undercut the union-supported stint. Essentially, sub-contractors pushed miners harder than the mine company could, often violating union contract provisions, while at the same time insulating the employer from any repercussions. By the 1930s, sub-contracting was replaced by leasing. The mine owners leased their mines to companies like the Knox Mining Company, creating a pattern of more long term arrangements that provided the mining corporations with one more layer of insulation. These leasing companies also violated safety rules to access more easily available coal and it was this practice that led to the Knox Mine disaster.

Miners opposed subcontracting because it rendered unionization a hollow victory and the book describes the internal union political battles that raged around this issue. Bringing a new perspective to the history of labour relations in anthracite, the authors provide evidence of how a string of union sanctioned strikes – and frequent wildcats – stemmed from the determination of workers to end subcontracting. Similarly, a series of rival union movements emerged out of worker dissatisfaction with the umwa’s inability, or unwillingness, to curb subcontracting. In the early 1910s, the Industrial Workers of the World (iww) was a militant voice for anthracite miners who opposed sub-contracting. After government repression drove the Wobblies from the coal fields, other union insurgencies emerged, the most prominent being the United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania (UAMP). The defeat of that group in the mid-1930s marked a turning point, as effective worker resistance came to an end and subcontracting with its attendant corruption became firmly embedded.

The struggles over this issue, and contests between rival unions, were violent. Subcontractors who defied the miners’ efforts to end this practice were sometimes victims of dynamite bombs. Some vocal union critics of subcontracting, or of the union’s apparent tolerance for the practice, were assassinated. In one case a shootout occurred in the district headquarters of the United Mine Workers Union, leading to the death of a local union president. The authors refer to a string of...