Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Metal Mine Workers Union developed from the labor unrest in Butte, Montana in 1917. The copper mines of Butte produced a strong union presence in the city; by 1887, all of the city's mines were unionized. This "closed shop" persisted until 1914 when internal struggles destroyed the once powerful Butte Miners Union of the Western Federation ...
Butte is a city in southwestern Montana established as a mining camp in the 1860s in the northern Rocky Mountains straddling the Continental Divide. Butte became a hotbed for silver and gold mining in its early stages, and grew exponentially upon the advent of electricity in the late-nineteenth century due to the land's large natural stores of ...
Before Butte's formal establishment in 1864, the area consisted of a mining camp that had developed in the early 1860s. [5] The city is in the Silver Bow Creek Valley (or Summit Valley), a natural bowl sitting high in the Rockies straddling the Continental Divide, [6] positioned on the southwestern side of a large mass of granite known as the Boulder Batholith, which dates to the Cretaceous ...
The Butte Miner's Union mortgaged their own buildings to send more money as well. In 1893 the Butte Miners' Union took the lead in forming the Western Federation of Miners. On May 15, 1893, forty delegates from fifteen regional unions, met at Butte and formed the organization that would represent the interests of these miners.
The Butte Miners' Union No. 1 was founded in 1878. In 1885, the Butte union hosted the organizing conference for the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) , and became the WFM's first chapter. The WFM took advantage of the "War of the Copper Kings," a struggle of mine owners to control the
Stalled work on a major copper mine proposed in central Montana can proceed after the state's Supreme Court ruled Monday that officials had adequately reviewed the project's environmental effects ...
He planned to go to Butte, Montana, to support union organizing after the Speculator Mine Disaster on June 8, 1917, where 168 men died. A fire began in the Granite Mountain shaft of the Spectacular Mine owned by North Butte Mining Company. Sealed bulkheads prevented men from escaping toxic fumes in the various levels of the mine.
On April 19, 1920, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union called for a strike in the mines around Butte. They hoped the strike would help secure higher wages, an eight-hour day, and end the use of the rustling card, a system that allowed employers to blacklist employees involved in union organizing, among other goals. [1]