BrianGarst.com

Timothy Carney, the author of The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, talks about “The Forgotten Man” at the CEI.

George H. Love had worked in a coal mine in his youth, but then went to Harvard Business School. By 1950, Love had pieced together a coal empire, combining a handful of coal companies into Pittsburgh Consolidated Coal Company, the world?s largest coal company. When Love sat down at the table he was representing not only his own coal giant, but all the big soft coal mine operators in the country.

Across from him was John L. Lewis. The son of Welsh immigrants, Lewis was working the mines by the age of 15. At 37 years old, he was the head of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). He founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which is now the “CIO” of the AFL-CIO.

When the two hammered out an agreement giving Lewis almost everything he wanted on wages and hours, newspapers called it “submission” on the part of Love. As the agreement played out for the rest of the decade, it began to look like something else. A jury later it called it “a conspiracy.”

I highly suggest reading the entire article.