Miner achievements

"The one strike that proved an exception to the wartime rule of short spontaneous walkouts, was the long, caotly and bitter 1943 bituminous coal strike. Again defying mine owners, Congress, the president, the military, and the public - which "damned his coal black soul" - John L. Lewis led his miners to a remarkable victory. As a result of the 1943 strike settlement, coal miners became the nation's highest paid industrial workers."