Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1993

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Paul G. Ashdown

Committee Members

Susan Lucarelli, John Gaventa, Dwight Teeter

Abstract

Using the United Mine Workers Journal as its primary source, this thesis compares how the UMW from 1972 to 1991 differed from that of the previous two decades in terms of encouraging member participation in union policy-making. To place changes within the union in a broader context, the study explores the influence of four major leaders-John L. Lewis, W. A. "Tony" Boyle, Arnold Miller, and Richard Trumka–on union structure and examines fluctuations in the bituminous-coal industry over a 40-year period, beginning in 1950. Issues of the Journal from 1951 through 1971 are compared with those from 1972 through 1991. Under the early direction of Miller and the Miners for Democracy, the number of Journal pages reserved for members to voice their union concerns increased and the ratio of covers featuring miners and their families to those featuring union officials increased. That trend was somewhat reversed during the Miller administration's later years. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the Journal under Trumka's leadership had reinstated the earlier changes. It had also added some of its own–most significantly, how-to articles on dealing with management, union organizing, and recruiting new activists within the local–to encourage rank-and-file participation. The study concludes that the labor press serves a vital function in advocating for and educating union members. But it asserts that because unions like the UMW are business, not revolutionary, unions, the extent to which the rank and file can expect to play a part in determining union policy is limited.

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