Labor Relations and the Social Structure of Accumulation: The Case of U.S. Coal Mining

The U.S. coal-mining industry has had strong unions and disruptive industrial conflict since the 1920s. Moreover, miners have often been forerunners for the U.S. labor movement as a whole. In a recent dispute, the UMWA campaign of civil disobedience and widespread grassroots organizing succeeded in preventing Pittston from running away from the union and its retirement fund. These methods and results point a hopeful beacon for labor in the 1990s. Is such optimism regarding a change in the climate of labor relations warranted? This chapter will place labor relations in coal in an analytical framework known as the Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA). The SSA refers to the overarching institutional structure that shapes and channels class conflicts. ¹ The history of this paradigm is linked to macroeconomic long waves of prosperity and crisis. This macro-institutional perspective can help throw light on changes in economic and labor conditions in one sector, U.S. coal mining.