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Volume 047-2 - October 1993 (12 pages)
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Page: of 12
the radical but long defunct Industrial Workers of the World,
and the even older Western Federation of Miners. The Inter. national Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, was a
linear descendent of the I.W.W. and the W.F.M. Now affiliated with the C.I.0., it sought to bring its brand of unionism
to the heart of the hard-rock gold mining area. In 1937 the
1.U.M.M.S.W (called Mine, Mill for short), established the
Twin Cities Local #283 and began recruiting members.
The Mine, Mill local hoped to share in the new strength of
unionization made possible by the passage of the Wagner
Act. This law had created the National Labor Relations Board
(N.L.R.B.) which aided many production industries to organize. With hope of federal backing, Mine, Mill began aggressively to challenge a local camp union known as the Mine
Workers Protective League for representation at the district
mines.
At the Banner Lava Cap Mine near Grass Valley, the
C.1.0. succeeded in winning a membership election battle,
emerging as the legal bargaining agent with help of the
N.L.R.B. The New union also gained a significant number of
membership pledges at one of the Idaho-Maryland shafts in
Grass Valley. They also secured significant membership
pledges at the Murchie Mine near Nevada City. Modern
industrial unionism seemed on its way to sweeping the area.
It will never be known precisely how many pledges the
new union acquired in its membership drive. Union officials
claimed they had 987 by March of 1937. Active membership,
distinguished from those who had only signed pledges, may
have been closer to two hundred, or about eight percent of
the miners in the district. Membership of the rival Mine
Workers Protective League, in comparison, ranged from a
low of 1400 to a high of 1800 during this same period. The
true number of C.1.0. miners or sympathizers will never be
known, because for a while miners could be a part of both
groups, and because Mine, Mill pledge signers were often
quickly fired and blacklisted by mine management. That the
threat of competition to the established Mine Workers Protective League was real, however, was not lost on League
leaders and mine owners alike.
The local camp union, the Mine Workers Protective
League, was not in a true sense a labor union. Until the mine
management in the district accepted it as a bargaining unit for
miners in their employment in 1937, in response to the C.1.O.
threat, the League had primarily existed as a self-help organization. It provided death benefits for widows of members,
and support for men injured on their jobs. It also existed for
social purposes, hosting an annual Miner’s Picnic, for instance. It had never been seriously involved in collective
bargaining, however.
The League had been created in a strike in 1919 and was
active again in strikes in 1921 and 1927, notably as an
anti-union force. In the 1937 and 1938 it was generally
controlled by mine management. Its officers and members
included shift bosses or monthly rather than hourly employees. Mine managers sometimes forced their employees to
join the League. Not surprisingly, the League was hostile to
the industrial union attitudes of the C.I-O. In fact, C.L.O.
Mine, Mill members were soon expelled from the ranks of
the League. The organizers of Mine, Mill Local #283 derisively referred to the League as “The Mine Owners Protective League.”
Many local League Miners, however, were fiercely loyal
to the organization and believed that the demands of the
C.1.O. were excessive, unrealistic, and threatening to the
revival of the mining economy which was underway. Even
worse, they thought that Mine, Mill demands for higher
wages could force some marginal mines, the Murchie for
example, to close.
The new union was calling for wages higher than the
average of $5.00 a day that prevailed in the district. They
were also demanding an eight-hour day, “collar to collar,”
meaning that travel time from actual work stations would be
counted as part of their shifts. Travel time to a work station
could add two or three hours to a miner’s work day in some
cases, because of the great underground depths of some of
the mines in the district.
The C.I.O. also called for cleaner conditions in the mines
where human and mule excrement was not disposed of properly. It also complained about the filthy conditions that generally prevailed in the “dry rooms” where miners changed
clothes and showered after completing a shift. In addition,
Mine, Mill demanded an end to the end of “skin” and lunchbox searches aimed at preventing the theft of high grade ore
by miners.
While these demands could collectively be viewed as
beneficial to all miners in the district, they were seen as
unrealistic by League stalwarts. Many of these took into
consideration the attitudes of the mining companies and their
needs to control costs and cut theft. League members generally viewed the C.I.O. miners as radicals, outsiders, wreckers,
and transients. In the view of the local miners the C.I.O. was
ready to move on should their strike-prone actions lead to a
destruction of the local mining economy, leaving the survivors to cope with the aftermath.
This resentment of the C.I.O. can be illustrated by the
immediate hostile reaction to the formation of the Mine, Mill
local. Meeting in Grass Valley at midnight on March 5, 1937,
a crowd estimated at up to 1,000 formed the “Nevada County
Citizens Committee of 5,000” to encourage support for the
Mine Workers Protective League. This group issued a statement which was a clear warning to the C.I.0.: “History since
the days of ’49 tells how agitators have fared here.’” Members
of the Committee of 5,000 also canvassed the local area,
securing prompt and nearly unanimous support from local
businesses for the League.
Claiming to fear possible violent activities of the C.I.O.,
the Committee of 5,000 was reported in local newspapers to
have organized a “Nevada County Emergency Patrol.” This
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