Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 348 p. : ill., maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 340-348).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1931. / "Biographical note." Bibliography: p. 195-199.

The Dominion government appointed a Royal Commission in April 1903 to investigate the causes of strikes that began in February between the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees at Vancouver and the Wellington Colliery Company and the Western Federation of Miners at Extension and Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The Boyal Commissioners were instructed to report whether in their opinion these and other American unions should have their activities in Canada curtailed. After a month of hearings the Commissioners reported that the United Brotherhood and the Western Federation were undesirable unions for Canadian workingmen to join. The Commissioners concluded that both unions had conspired to bring about strikes in the Wellington Colliery mines. The Nanaimo Miners' Union, Local 177 of the Western Federation, was accused by the Commissioners of assisting in the conspiracy to tie up the coal mines in the adjacent towns. As the Canadian Pacific Railway Company depended in part on the Wellington mines for steam coal for its trains at Vancouver, it was apparent that the unions concerned tried to break the strike for recognition between the railway company and the union in favour of the union. The Commissioners also reported that these American unions were spreading revolutionary socialism in British Columbia. The main result of this political action, concluded the Commissioners, was to instil in workingmen a belief in the inevitability of class conflict between themselves and their employers. The transportation and mining industries of the province were in danger of having their businesses seriously disrupted if these foreign unions remained in Canada. The Commissioners stated that a few socialists in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Extension and Cumberland were responsible for encouraging these radical unions to organize the workers. The question as to whether the Western Federation actually caused the strikes on the island has never been seriously explored. Historians have been divided on the question and on their assessment of the validity of the Commissioners' Report. The official hearings disclosed that James Dunsmuir, the president and owner of Wellington Collieries, locked out his miners once they had formed unions. The Commissioners argued that the conspiracy plan depended on the predictable reaction of Dunsmuir to the formation of unions in his mines. In the past he had never permitted unions to exist for long in his mines before he dismissed the union leaders. It has never been satisfactorily demonstrated whether the miners joined the Western Federation for reasons of their own and then struck for union recognition or whether they were, as the Commissioners alleged, tricked into the Federation only to find themselves locked out. The Commissioners admitted in the Report that Wellington Collieries and other large employers of labour bore some responsibility for the fact that working men organized unions in order to protect themselves from the arbitrary and unjust treatment they often received from managers and foremen. Although the Commissioners stated that shorter hours and higher wages would make workingmen more content, they did not report that grievances over working conditions and wages were the real reasons why the miners joined the Western Federation. Yet the official hearings of 1903 contained ample evidence that the strikes at Extension and Cumberland occurred for reasons that lay primarily within and not outside the coalfield. The Commissioners misinterpreted the reasons why the miners joined the Western Federation because their attention was directed solely to the issue of the advance of American unions into Canada. An analysis of the official evidence of the Commission reveals that the miners formed unions at Wellington Collieries in 1903 in order to resolve problems that had become traditional sources of dispute on the coalfield. The traditional problems that embittered relations between miners and companies were geological, social and economic in character. The faulted condition of the coal seams made mining both difficult and dangerous. Since 1871 Wellington miners had organized unions to fight for improvements in safety and working conditions underground. However, the increased employment of illiterate and inexperienced Oriental workers increased the dangers of mining to all concerned. Miners demanded the exclusion of Oriental workers from the mines for another important reason than the question of safety. Oriental workers competed for the jobs of mine labourers and were often used in place of white miners during strikes. During strikes in 1877, in 1883 and in 1903 Chinese workers kept the mines running while white miners were locked out. In contrast to the Wellington mines, unions emerged at the Nanaimo mines and working conditions steadily improved after 1883. A miners' union grievance committee was established in the mines by 1883. An eight hour day, oriental exclusion and union recognition were in effect in the Nanaimo mines by 1891. Attempts by union leaders from Nanaimo in the years 1890 to 1901 failed in their purpose of organizing the Dunsmuir mines. When the Nanaimo miners joined the Western Federation of Miners in 1902 in order to improve their weak bargaining power, miners in the adjacent Dunsmuir mines saw their opportunity to join the Federation. With the financial and moral support of a large union behind them the Dunsmuir miners demanded union recognition as the first step in their plan to negotiate improvements in wages and working conditions. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

The essay explores the events and background of the 1960 lockout at the Miike colleries of the Mitsui Mining Co. in Kyushu, Japan. The dispute, one of the longest and most violent in postwar labour history, occurred at the same time as the anti-U.S.-Japan security treaty struggle and the two events capped 15 years of social turbulence after the war. At issue in the Miike case was the designated dismissal of 1200 miners. In analyzing the events at Miike the author challenges current assumptions about the so-called three pillars of Japanese labour-management relations (lifetime employment, enterprise unions, and seniority-based wages). Couterposed are four factors—capitalist rationalism, worker egalitarianism, enterprise corporatism, and liberal democracy—the combination of which lend Japanese labour-management relations their specific character in any given instance. The essay also explores the particular role of the Japan Federation of Employers Organizations (Nikkeiren) in other labour disputes in the 1950s as well as at Miike. The economic background to the Miike strike is also analyzed, in particular, the political aspects of the rationalization of the coal industry. The final chapter deals with relief measures for unemployed coal miners and coal companies during the 1960s. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

The thesis describes the social and political effects of the transformation of the Dukeries district of Nottinghamshire, where seven new coal mines were sunk between 1918 and 1928. The coal companies responsible for developing the Dukeries field constructed new colliery villages 'at the pit gates' as part of their investment. The thesis deals with the history and characteristics of these townships, planned, built and owned by a single authority. Like other new communities, they suffered 'teething troubles'. It proved difficult to engender a unified community spirit as miners and their families migrated from older coalfields throughout Britain during the early years of high labour turnover. Relationships were strained between the miners and the existing residents of the Dukeries, although the aristocrats whose landed estates gave the district its name came reluctantly to favour mining because of the royalties they obtained therefrom. The first years of the new coinmuniti j:.es were beset by difficulties affecting the provision of facilities for education, religion, shopping, female employment and leisure. But the thesis does not just analyse the problems accompanying industrialisation. The power of the employers in the communities they had created produced much characteristic of company towns. Political representation and control was retained by the colliery companies and the old leaders of Dukeries society, while the Labour Party was not founded until the 194Os. The 'non-political' Spencer Union, a Nottinghamshire phenomenon, monopolised trade unionism in the new pits. Minor regulations were enforced in the villages by uniformed company policemen. As 'benevolent paternalists', the companies sponsored stores, sport, recreation and even religion. The notion of the orderly 'model' village was encouraged as a means of disciplining the workforce. The predominant characteristics of the colliery villages did not disappear until the 194Os, when the war followed by nationalisation destroyed the power of the private owners.

No description available.

Durante o governo provisório e constitucional de Getúlio Vargas ocorreu a criação do aparato sindicalista corporativista no Brasil. A partir dessa conjuntura, o presente estudo analisa as condições que possibilitaram as estratégias de resistência dos mineiros de carvão do então município de São Jerônimo, no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul durante a década de 1930, contra a extrema exploração e opressão a que estavam submetidos através do desgastante e perigoso trabalho nos subsolos e da arquitetura mina-com-vila-operária. Nesse cenário da pesquisa, traça-se uma continuidade entre as condições de vida e trabalho, cultura e identidade de classe, inteligência própria, resistência individual, coletiva e organizada para compreender a eclosão de greves entre os anos de 1933 e 1935. Esses conflitos entre as Companhias extrativistas e os mineiros na arena jurídica e na pressão direta através da paralização da produção, auxiliam a entender muitos aspectos dessa comunidade encravada na região do Baixo Jacuí. A análise contempla, também, as condições peculiares da categoria mineira, os processos trabalhistas individuais, a refundação de entidades classistas como a FORGS e os sindicatos mineiros e as greves. Todos esses aspectos compõem experiências importantes para compreender a luta desses trabalhadores por direitos. / While President Getúlio Vargas was under his provisional and constitutional command, there was the execution of the so called union and corporatist labor machine in Brazil. From this conjuncture, the present study analyses the conditions that brought the resistance strategies of the coal miners in the so called town São Jerônimo, situated in Rio Grande do Sul State, during the 30’s, against the extreme exploration and oppression that labors were submitted to through the dangerous and irksome work in the underground mine and architecture-with-village-working. Under the prospect of the research, a guide continuity is traced between the living and working conditions, culture and class identity, own intelligence section, individual, collective and organized resistance to understand the outbreak of strikes between the years 1933 and 1935. These conflicts between the Extractive companies and miners in the legal field and the direct pressure through the break of production help to understand many aspects of this community nestled in the Lower Jacuí region. The analysis also includes the peculiar conditions of the mining category, individual lawsuits, the refounding of class entities as FORGS and miners unions and strikes. All these aspects make up significant experiments to understand the struggle for rights of these workers.

Durante o governo provisório e constitucional de Getúlio Vargas ocorreu a criação do aparato sindicalista corporativista no Brasil. A partir dessa conjuntura, o presente estudo analisa as condições que possibilitaram as estratégias de resistência dos mineiros de carvão do então município de São Jerônimo, no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul durante a década de 1930, contra a extrema exploração e opressão a que estavam submetidos através do desgastante e perigoso trabalho nos subsolos e da arquitetura mina-com-vila-operária. Nesse cenário da pesquisa, traça-se uma continuidade entre as condições de vida e trabalho, cultura e identidade de classe, inteligência própria, resistência individual, coletiva e organizada para compreender a eclosão de greves entre os anos de 1933 e 1935. Esses conflitos entre as Companhias extrativistas e os mineiros na arena jurídica e na pressão direta através da paralização da produção, auxiliam a entender muitos aspectos dessa comunidade encravada na região do Baixo Jacuí. A análise contempla, também, as condições peculiares da categoria mineira, os processos trabalhistas individuais, a refundação de entidades classistas como a FORGS e os sindicatos mineiros e as greves. Todos esses aspectos compõem experiências importantes para compreender a luta desses trabalhadores por direitos. / While President Getúlio Vargas was under his provisional and constitutional command, there was the execution of the so called union and corporatist labor machine in Brazil. From this conjuncture, the present study analyses the conditions that brought the resistance strategies of the coal miners in the so called town São Jerônimo, situated in Rio Grande do Sul State, during the 30’s, against the extreme exploration and oppression that labors were submitted to through the dangerous and irksome work in the underground mine and architecture-with-village-working. Under the prospect of the research, a guide continuity is traced between the living and working conditions, culture and class identity, own intelligence section, individual, collective and organized resistance to understand the outbreak of strikes between the years 1933 and 1935. These conflicts between the Extractive companies and miners in the legal field and the direct pressure through the break of production help to understand many aspects of this community nestled in the Lower Jacuí region. The analysis also includes the peculiar conditions of the mining category, individual lawsuits, the refounding of class entities as FORGS and miners unions and strikes. All these aspects make up significant experiments to understand the struggle for rights of these workers.

Durante o governo provisório e constitucional de Getúlio Vargas ocorreu a criação do aparato sindicalista corporativista no Brasil. A partir dessa conjuntura, o presente estudo analisa as condições que possibilitaram as estratégias de resistência dos mineiros de carvão do então município de São Jerônimo, no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul durante a década de 1930, contra a extrema exploração e opressão a que estavam submetidos através do desgastante e perigoso trabalho nos subsolos e da arquitetura mina-com-vila-operária. Nesse cenário da pesquisa, traça-se uma continuidade entre as condições de vida e trabalho, cultura e identidade de classe, inteligência própria, resistência individual, coletiva e organizada para compreender a eclosão de greves entre os anos de 1933 e 1935. Esses conflitos entre as Companhias extrativistas e os mineiros na arena jurídica e na pressão direta através da paralização da produção, auxiliam a entender muitos aspectos dessa comunidade encravada na região do Baixo Jacuí. A análise contempla, também, as condições peculiares da categoria mineira, os processos trabalhistas individuais, a refundação de entidades classistas como a FORGS e os sindicatos mineiros e as greves. Todos esses aspectos compõem experiências importantes para compreender a luta desses trabalhadores por direitos. / While President Getúlio Vargas was under his provisional and constitutional command, there was the execution of the so called union and corporatist labor machine in Brazil. From this conjuncture, the present study analyses the conditions that brought the resistance strategies of the coal miners in the so called town São Jerônimo, situated in Rio Grande do Sul State, during the 30’s, against the extreme exploration and oppression that labors were submitted to through the dangerous and irksome work in the underground mine and architecture-with-village-working. Under the prospect of the research, a guide continuity is traced between the living and working conditions, culture and class identity, own intelligence section, individual, collective and organized resistance to understand the outbreak of strikes between the years 1933 and 1935. These conflicts between the Extractive companies and miners in the legal field and the direct pressure through the break of production help to understand many aspects of this community nestled in the Lower Jacuí region. The analysis also includes the peculiar conditions of the mining category, individual lawsuits, the refounding of class entities as FORGS and miners unions and strikes. All these aspects make up significant experiments to understand the struggle for rights of these workers.

No description available.