On this date in 1989, the United Mine Workers of America voted to re-affiliate with the AFL-CIO. Trumka, who led the Mine Workers – and who would go on to be elected president of the AFL-CIO a decade later – said the Mine Workers have "always been affiliated with a national labor federation when such an affiliation was in the best interests of our membership."
The Mine Workers had been in and out of the federation over the years, leaving the AFL to form the CIO in 1937, quitting the CIO five years later, rejoining the AFL in 1946 and then quitting again in December 1947, when Mine Workers founder John L. Lewis slipped his now-famous note to AFL President William Green that read: "Green -- A.F. of L. We disaffiliate. 12-12-47.”
photo: Trumka joins striking UAW members on the picket line in Bedford, Indiana on October 1
The Mine Workers had been in and out of the federation over the years, leaving the AFL to form the CIO in 1937, quitting the CIO five years later, rejoining the AFL in 1946 and then quitting again in December 1947, when Mine Workers founder John L. Lewis slipped his now-famous note to AFL President William Green that read: "Green -- A.F. of L. We disaffiliate. 12-12-47.”
photo: Trumka joins striking UAW members on the picket line in Bedford, Indiana on October 1