Summary
Abstract
The United Mine Workers of America formed in 1890. The union established a Legislative Department and COMPAC (Coal Miners Political Action Committee) in 1973.
Dates
- Creation: 1933-1993
- Creation: 1973 - 1993
Extent
27 Linear Feet (10 items)
Background
Biographical or Historical Note
The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) formed in 1890. In the early decades of the union, legislative matters were filtered through the UMW President’s Office or the UMW general counsel, Judge Henry Warrum. In 1936, while serving concurrently as UMW president and president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), John L. Lewis established Labor’s Non-Partisan League, which took charge of legislative issues relevant to the union.
Following a reorganization of the union in 1972, Robert R. Nelson became head of Labor’s Non-Partisan League in June 1973. The UMW charged Nelson with the responsibility of developing a new legislative program. In August 1973 the UMW International Executive Board disbanded the League and created a Legislative Department in its place, with Nelson remaining as director.
Concurrently the UMW established COMPAC (the Coal Miners’ Political Action Committee) to lobby for improvements in old age pensions, disability benefits, workmen’s compensation, black lung benefits, and unemployment insurance, and to advocate the election of candidates who would promote legislation that furthered the enactment and administration of laws beneficial to the union. In its first months, COMPAC consisted of three international union officers, with staff provided by the Legislative Department. By 1974, COMPAC was both a department of the international union and an autonomous decision-making body composed of rank-and-file members and union officers. On and off in the years that followed, the Legislative Department and COMPAC were combined administratively. In 1978 COMPAC was reorganized. By 1979, the UMW operated a combined COMPAC/Legislative Committee consisting of one member elected from each district within the UMW, inclusive of the United States and Canada. By 1983, a combined COMPAC/Legislative Committee of representatives from each U.S. district operated independently of a second COMPAC entity representing Canadian districts of the UMW and their legislative concerns within the domain of Canadian laws and governmental bodies.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into the following series: 1: Legislative Department Subject Files (1970-1978); 2: COMPAC General Files (1933-1988 and undated); 3: COMPAC State and District Files (1972-1993 and undated); 4: Photographs (1979).
Location
For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Penn State University Libraries catalog via the link above. Archival collections may be housed in offsite storage. For materials stored offsite, please allow 2-3 business days for retrieval.
General note
This collection consists of documents pertaining to union involvement in lobbying, legislation, and elections at the national and state levels.
Series 1: Legislative Department Subject Files consists of an alphabetical file on topics of concern to the union during the 1970s, including, above all, financial compensation and health care for miners suffering from black lung disease, but also coal policy and general energy policies, mine safety, the Brookside strike in Harlan, Kentucky, and other subjects.
Series 2: COMPAC General Files documents national operations, goals, and policies of COMPAC from its formation in 1973 through the 1980s, as the union strove to influence legislation and elections through targeted lobbying efforts and the organization of its members as voters. In addition to correspondence, meeting minutes, financial records, and political reports, there are topical files on black lung disease and workmen’s compensation.
Series 3: COMPAC State and District Files documents the union’s political and legislative efforts at state and regional levels. These files include correspondence, membership lists, meeting minutes, political reports, and lobbying and expense reports. Although most of the files are organized by state, normally with a correspondence between union districts and individual states (Ohio, District 6; Illinois, District 12; West Virginia, Districts 17, 29, and 31; and so forth), the term “Western region” serves as a catch-all for records of COMPAC state and regional activities within a dozen states and several union districts.
Series 4: Photographs holds 8x10 black and white prints from a COMPAC seminar of September 17, 1979.
Using These Materials
Repository Details
Part of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library Repository
104 Paterno Library
Penn State University
University Park 16802 USA
(814) 865-1793
spcollections@psu.edu
Access Restrictions
Collection is open for research. Records less than 20 years old shall be made accessible only with the written permission of the designated representative of the donor.
Copyright Restrictions
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
For those materials where the United Mine Workers of America hold copyright, the United Mine Workers of America have given and assigned to the Library all rights of copyright as may be found among the materials.
Preferred Citation
[Item Title], United Mine Workers of America, Legislative Department and COMPAC records, HCLA 9435, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.
- Title
- United Mine Workers of America, Legislative Department and COMPAC records, 1933-1992
- Status
- Published
- Author
- Barry Kernfeld
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin