John L. Lewis (1880 - 1969)
Thu Feb 12, 1880
John Llewellyn Lewis, born on this day in 1880, was a significant American labor leader who served as President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960, also becoming influential within the CIO and AFL.
A major player in the history of coal mining, he was the driving force behind the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 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 and in 1944 took the union into the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
For forty years, many coal miners hailed him as their leader, whom they credited with bringing high wages, pensions and medical benefits.
Lewis marketed unionism to his capitalist contemporaries as a way of preventing more revolutionary change:
"The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government."
J. B. McLachlan, a prominent Canadian communist trade unionist, characterized Lewis as a "traitor to the working class".
- Date: 1880-02-12
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, aflcio.org.
- Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org