After the Banking Panic of 1907, demand for coal dropped and many mines ran at ten to twenty percent of capacity. What little financial security miners had was gone and feeding a family became very tenuous.

Cleveland Toney from Dothan explained the miner situation in 1908:

I’d get up every morning at five o’clock to see if the whistle would blow, but that would happen only once or twice a month. At that rate a man might make five or six dollars a month; and, out of that, they’d take fifty cents for the doctor and fifteen cents for hospital insurance. 

In an attempt to keep the mines profitable, or at least increase available cash during the crisis, mine operators officially instituted the “long ton”.  Now miners were expected to mine 2240 lbs of coal for the same pay that they had been mining the short ton or 2000 lbs.  

In response to this break with the 1902 and 1908 agreements, three thousand miners from District 17  met in Boomer and began a general strike on May 27, 1909.

Negotiations did not go well.  Realizing that owners would use the strike to justify mass layoffs, the union abandoned the strike in a matter of days and miners went back to work or at least to waiting around for work to be available. 

Not everyone was on board with the about face.

Boomer WV, June 1909

Sorry about the late post.  Covid is no fun.

Glossary:

check off–automatic deduction from miner’s pay.  Common check offs included, doctor access fee, hospital fee, burial fund, materials used in mining, YMCA dues, rent, & company store debts.  Most of these check offs were mandatory.  Rent check off could be avoided if you owned your own land or boarded with someone who did.

District 17 — UMWA district covering WV

long ton–A unilateral redefinition of the 2000 pound ton to 2240 pounds made by mine operators.  Miners were paid by the ton.  For a few years after this change, many operators could pay workers in some locations by the long ton and sell coal by the ‘short ton’ or standard ton.

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