Western Federation of Miners (WFM)

The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) is a labor union that gains a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia.

Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers bring it into sharp conflicts–and often pitched battles–with both employers and governmental authorities.

One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurs in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–04; the conflicts are thus dubbed the Colorado Labor Wars.

The WFM also plays a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, but leaves that organization several years later.

The WFM changes its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916.

After a period of decline it revives in the early days of the New Deal and helps found the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935.

The Mine Mill union is expelled from the CIO in 1950 during the post-war red scare for refusing to shed its Communist leadership.

After spending years fighting off efforts by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to raid its membership, Mine Mill and the Canadian Auto Workers merge in 1967 and are able to retain the name Mine Mill Local 598.

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