John L. Lewis

John Llewellyn Lewis (February 12, 1880–June 11, 1969) was a organized labor leader who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960. He was the driving force behind the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which established the United Steel Workers of America and helped organize millions of other industrial workers in the 1930s. After resigning as head of the CIO in 1941, he took the Mine Workers out of the CIO in 1942, then back into the American Federation of Labor in 1944.

Rise to Power

Born to Welsh immigrants in Lucas, Iowa, Lewis began working in the Lucas mines as a teenager then began roving around the countryside as a "ten day miner" in the western United States and finally moved to Panama, Illinois with other members of his family. He joined the United Mine Workers and was eventually elected to the position of branch secretary.

Related Topics:
Welsh - Immigrant - Lucas, Iowa

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In 1911 Lewis began organizing for the AFL full time. By 1917 he had been elected president of the UMWA. Lewis quickly asserted himself as a dominant figure in what was then the largest and most influential trade union in the country.

Related Topics:
1911 - 1917 - Trade union

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Lewis was a despotic leader of the Mine Workers: he expelled his political rivals within the UMWA, such as John Brophy and Adolph Germer, and bullied those whom he did not drive out. He nonetheless commanded great loyalty from many of his followers, even those he had exiled in the past.

Related Topics:
John Brophy - Adolph Germer

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A powerful speaker and strategist, Lewis used the nation's dependence on coal to increase the wages and improve the safety of miners, even during several severe recessions. He masterminded a five-month strike, ensuring that the increase in wages gained during World War I would not be lost.

Related Topics:
Coal - World War I

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Lewis challenged Samuel Gompers, who had led the AFL and its predecessors for nearly forty years, for the Presidency of the AFL in 1921. William Green, one of his subordinates within the Mine Workers at the time, nominated him; William Hutcheson, the President of the Carpenters, supported him. Gompers won. Three years later, on Gompers' death, Green succeeded him as President. Ten years later, during the struggle over the AFL's refusal to organize mass production workers, Green would be the butt of some of Lewis' most stinging attacks while Hutcheson would be the recipient of a famous punch from Lewis that came to symbolize the dispute between the conservative AFL and the rebellious CIO.

Related Topics:
Samuel Gompers - 1921 - William Green - William Hutcheson - Carpenters

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