Western Federation of Miners

Western Federation of Miners

United States 1893

Synopsis

In reaction to the use of federal troops to break a strike of unionized miners of nonferrous metals in Idaho, miners' unions from five western states formed the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), an industrial union of wage earners (miners and smelter workers) in and around the mines. The WFM endorsed the class struggle in the preamble to its constitution and engaged in labor strikes in which the mining corporations used troops to defeat the union miners. The WFM created the Western Labor Union and its successor, the American Labor Union, as competitors to the more conservative, craft union-dominated American Federation of Labor. The WFM endorsed the Populists in 1896 and the newly formed Socialist Party in 1900, and in 1905 the WFM took a leading role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization committed to industrial syndicalism. In 1916 the WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers and adopted the more conciliatory language of bread-and-butter unionism.

Timeline

• 1893: Henry Ford builds his first automobile.
• 1898: United States defeats Spain in the three-month Spanish American War. As a result, Cuba gains it independence, and the United States purchases Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spain for $20 million.
• 1900:

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