7. Conclusion of the Strike

Berwind-White, which had not been able to defeat the strike at the local level, was greatly pleased with the repressive actions of the state. Captain John Borland informed the Pennsylvania State Police's Superintendent, John C. Groome: "The number of strikers was estimated at nearly four thousand and the Superintendent, of the Berwind-White Coal Company, was so well pleased with they way the situation was handled that he used every possible influence to have my men retained." [Borland to Groome, "Monthly Report. . . June 30th, 1906, Records of the Pennsylvania State Police, RG30, Pennsylvania State Archives, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pa.]

Windber-area miners and their families faced armed repression and many other obstacles in their efforts to organize. Before the inception of the national union’s strike, UMWA President John Mitchell had won approval for a strike policy that authorized each district union to pursue separate negotiations and contracts instead of the national organization leading one uniform, national strategy. This decision, highly controversial at the time, reflected the national union leaders’ perceptions that the coal companies’ resources and powers were immense compared to those of organized labor. But this decision also meant that the efforts of local, previously, nonunionized, miners to organize would be very difficult. From the start of the strike, District 2 had had a fierce battle on its hand to maintain its organization against the newly formed Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association which had declared its intention to destroy the union throughout the district that year. The result was that the hard-pressed District 2, U.M.W.A. organization could provide little financial relief to the distressed strikers in Windber.

Nonetheless, despite the massive repression, evictions, nativism, ongoing false reports to the press, company espionage, the systematic arrests of the local union officers for “arson” or other charges later dismissed, Winder miners did not end their strike for union. Immigrant and American miners responded creatively to the situation. Rather than become strikebreakers, many left town for other destinations in the U.S. or returned to their native countries. Annie Popovitch unsuccessfully sued—but did sue—the armed gunmen who had murdered her husband. Although times were hard, the miners who remained in Windber did not resume work until after the district had made a settlement of the strike in July, and all hope for securing a union at the Berwind-White mines had been lost. District 2, one of the last districts to settle the strike, had reluctantly negotiated contracts which saved what it could for its old organized locals, but it could not secure union recognition from Berwind-White and certain other hostile open shop companies. Lacking the funds needed to continue the local strike, Windber miners had to temporarily abandon their hopes for unionization, and all that meant to them.

Miners temporarily abandoned their unionization struggles but not the idea of union itself. The strike itself had been effective and costly to Berwind-White too. Strike participants might have found some comfort in the old labor saying “A lost strike is never lost,” if only because it showed employers that workers would not endure endless exploitation forever, without protesting, and without exacting a heavy price of its own in return. Pragmatic miners would weigh their options carefully in the future. After 1906, those who remained in Windber focused on surviving, reuniting their families, and building up their respective ethnic institutions. During World War I they would once again take up the difficult collective struggle to unionize, become part of the American labor movement, gain greater control over their lives, and simultaneously “get Windber Free for Democracy.”