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Between the 1880s and 1950s,
miners were involved in a series of conflicts with management,
and with established order generally. The struggle was rooted in
the differing interests and traditions of miners and owners.
While owners sought to minimize labour costs, workers
endeavoured to shape the workplace in their own interests, and
to maximize their incomes. Miners expressed their positions in
terms of union organization and strike action, in the process of
which a strong strain of radical ideology emerged. In the
repeated struggles,
the state also played a key role,
intervening to discourage disruptions in production because of
the economic importance of the industry. State officials usually favoured compromise, but, on some occasions, revealed a
preference for the position of management.1
The conflict
was nurtured by conditions in coal mining that made miners
particularly independent and confrontational in relation to
management. In the first place, they worked in an underground
world of widely dispersed rooms, where they experienced
considerable freedom, and managerial control could not easily be
exercised. This freedom was heightened, in the case of the
skilled miners, working at the coal face, because, unlike the
other men at the site, who were paid by the hour, they had
individual contracts with the owners and were paid by the amount
of coal mined, measured by tonnage or cubic yardage. The skilled
miners were not, strictly-speaking, employees of the company and
had the right to set many of their own conditions of work,
particularly in the early years of the industry. Moreover, this
situation, which had existed traditionally in coal mines in
Europe as well as America, had bred a culture of pride and
solidarity, with which many of the immigrants were already
familiar in their homelands before their employment in the coal
mines of the Canadian West.2
In the
region, the history of the miners' struggles for better wages
and working conditions breaks down into three stages. In the
first period, prior to the First World War, unions made their
appearance, and managed considerable gains, especially after
1898 in the Crowsnest Pass, where the largest mines were based.
Miners and entrepreneurs were willing to compromise because of
the relatively precarious economic state of the industry. In the
second stage, the relatively short period until 1920-workers
achieved their greatest monetary success, and their growing
radicalism resulted in a brief, but dramatic, challenge to the
dominance of capitalism. In the
longer period that followed-until 1945-miners were forced on the defensive, the
solidarity of the union movement was shaken, and, for a time,
some of the previous monetary gains were lost. The influence of
the miners waned in the 1950s as the industry collapsed.
The State and Labour Relations
William N.T. Wylie, "Coal-Mining Landscapes: Commemorating
Coal Mining in Alberta and Southeastern British Columbia," a
report prepared for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of
Canada, Parks Canada Agency, 2001.
See Also: The Coal
Industry—Overview, Rapid Expansion,
Domestic and Steam Coalfields,
1914-1947: The Struggling Industry,
Collapse and Rebirth,
Settlement of the West,
Issues and Challenges—Overview,
Entrepreneurship, Technology,
Underground Techniques,
Surface Technology,
Surface Mining,
Social Impacts, Unions,
1882-1913: Unionization and Early Gains,
1914-1920: Revolutionary Movement,
1921-1950s: Labour Unrest and
Setbacks, Mining Companies, People of
the Coal Mines,
The Middle Class,
Miners and Local
Government,
Politics and Economics ,
Environmental Impacts,
Health and Safety—Overview,
The State and
Labour Relations,
The State and
Development after 1918.
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