Next Time We Strike

XI. The Union Legacy

Chapter XI The Union Legacy With the organization of the American coal miners virtually completed , John L. Lewis announced in 1935 his more ambitious goal to "organize the unorganized."! The vehicle for this expanded effort was to be the Congress of Industrial Organization (CI0), established in 1935 under the principal leadership of John L. Lewis, who was elected the organization'S first president. The CIO set its sights high, and by 1938 it organized the important auto and steel industries. Paralleling the national aims of John L. Lewis through the CIO, in June 1936, union leaders in Carbon County organized the Carbon County Central Labor Council, composed of the local UMWA unions, auto mechanics , bricklayers and stonemasons, bartenders, and store clerks. George B. Harding of Price served as president; Robert B. Henderson of Kenilworth as vice president; and Frank Bonacci as secretary-treasurer. The first objective of the local council was to "organize all unorganized workmen."2 Frank Bonacci remained with the UMWA until August 1937 when John L. Lewis appointed him a field organizer for the CIO for $225 a month. Bonacci continued with the CIO and elected to stay with the organization when the UMWA broke away in 1942. In May 1942, Bonacci was appointed regional director for the CIO in Colorado. Later, his area of responsibility was expanded to include Utah and New Mexico. After a reorganization in 1943, Bonacci served as regional director for Utah and Nevada until October 1951 when he suffered a heart attack and retired from the CIO on July 1, 1952. In 1936, Bonacci was elected to the Utah House of Representatives from Carbon County and served six consecutive terms until 1952 when his health precluded his seeking reelection. As a legislator, Bonacci worked 195 The Next Time We Strike strenuously for worker protection benefits for workers and the aged. His concern with education resulted in the establishment of Carbon College, now the College of Eastern Utah, in 1938. Following his heart attack in 1951, Frank Bonacci endured poor health until January 20, 1954, when he died in the Price Hospital.3 No other man better symbolized the struggle for unionism in the eastern Utah coal fields. In death, the revered union leader and esteemed political servant symbolized the labor union's respectability and power in Carbon County. The experience of 1933 has left Carbon County with a unique legacy. Of nonagricultural workers, it has the highest percentage of union members of any county in the state.4 When Roosevelt upheld the right of labor to organize he created a stronghold of Democratic support that continued through the 1980 election when Carbon County was the only one of Utah's twenty-nine counties to support the Democratic presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter; the other twenty-eight voted overwhelmingly for Republican Ronald Reagan. However, the 52 percent that Carter received in 1980 indicated a significant erosion from the support rendered Roosevelt. In the three presidential elections after the organization of the Utah coal fields, Roosevelt's popularity was evident: 79 percent of the total county vote in 1936, 71 percent in 1940, and 70 percent in 1944. In some of the coal-mining precincts the votes for Roosevelt's opponent could be counted on two hands. Percentages in favor of Roosevelt reached 94 percent in Clear Creek in 1936 and just under 90 percent in Standardville, Rains, Sunnyside, and Consumers. Even in 1940, when UMWA President John L. Lewis announced his support for Wendell Wilkie because he thought Roosevelt had deserted union workers, the Carbon County coal-mining precincts of Scofield, Clear Creek, Royal, Kenilworth, Rains, Columbia, and Sweet registered more than 80 percent support for Roosevelt. All the mining precincts in Carbon County voted 1,849 to 537, or 77.5 percent in favor of the third-time Democratic candidate. After 1934, the history of labor relation issues was tied primarily to national issues with regular focus on contract negotiations. When these negotiations were not completed on time, Utah miners walked out until ordered by John L. Lewis to return to work. However, the solidarity of the Utah union men was not tested during the remainder of the 1930s. When walkouts were called beginning on April 1, 1941, the wartime demand for coal made quick settlement a necessity. The rampant inflation that broke loose during World War II led John L. Lewis to demand a wage increase for his miners. The negotiations dragged on (with several 196 The Union Legacy Utah walkouts) until...