On this day in labor history, the year was, 1880, labor leader John L. Lewis was born in a company mining camp outside of Lucas, Iowa.
His father was a Welsh coal miner, and young Lewis followed in his footsteps entering the Big Hill Mine in Lucas at the age of 17.
He became a union leader, and served as the president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960.
Under his leadership, the United Mine Workers became one of the leading unions in the nation.
Lewis was an aggressive fighter and strike leader who gained higher wages for his membership while steamrolling over his opponents.
A thunderous speaker, Time Magazine once referred to him as the “Lion” of the labor movement.
In 1935, Lewis and eight other leaders formed the Committee for Industrial Relations, within the American Federation of Labor.
Lewis believed it was essential to the future of the labor movement to organize steel workers.
This put the committee at odds with the craft-trade union dominated AFL.
The disagreement eventually led to the CIO splitting from the AFL.
The CIO helped establish the United Steel Workers of America and helped organize millions of other industrial workers in the 1930s.
Lewis played a major role in helping President Franklin D. Roosevelt win a landslide re-election in 1936.
During World War II, most unions took no strike pledges. Lewis was never one to let public opinion get in the way of what he thought was right.
He led several strikes during the war, causing public outrage.
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson awarded Lewis Presidential Medal of Freedom.
John L. Lewis is most often remember for the quote
“The workers of the nation were tired of waiting for corporate industry to right their economic wrongs, to alleviate their social agony and to grant them their political rights. Despairing of fair treatment, they resolved to do something for themselves.”
Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show