Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of trade agreements. The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor and organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite signs of coming to be materialized.

(1) The Miners

In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered a richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in the anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers, generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient army.

The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field a beginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the union entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890. [51] With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwindled so that by the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membership was barely 13,000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scale of 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut still further.[52]

The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with a membership which had dropped to 10,000 and of which 7000 were in Ohio and with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a general strike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit of solidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years of unemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated. One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on a strike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when the strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor. Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining industry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. A contributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courts than in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblages of the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. On one occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail for contempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginia was offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unions throughout the country and even the general public sent the striking miners financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused the requests for militia made by several sheriffs.

The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field after a twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory for the union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, the establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores, semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing Interstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators, which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. The operators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in.

The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, at which the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition, the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinois the run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens of other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the check-off system[54] in every district, save that of Western Pennsylvania.[55] Such a comprehensive victory would not have been possible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices had taken.

But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread most unevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was in Illinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has many times been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable the union to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of the United Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the general strike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000. Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusual obstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroes or white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize than recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majority in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have been able to operate their mines more days during the year than elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States. But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913. The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of the employers.

Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when, in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" in violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.

In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the friction which developed between the operators of the several competitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction was the attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize a national coal operators' association to take the place of the several autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however, objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which they had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners in this emergency threw their power against the national operators' association. A suspension throughout most districts of the central competitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase in wages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving place to separate agreements for each district.