What financial support was available for US coal miners who were injured in work accidents in the 1920s?

by sylvar

My wife's great-grandfather lost both legs in a mining accident in Pennsylvania in the 1920s.

Worker's compensation insurance and social security disability benefits didn't exist then. Would the United Mine Workers of America have offered a disability benefit if he was a member? Would the mining company have owed him anything more than his last paycheck? Or was his family just out of luck until he found a job that didn't require using his legs?

jlbl528

In the 1920s the labor market was flooded with able-bodied workers. Not just in the mining industry. Workers who suffered any modern-day disability would be let go. Depending on the company, sometimes they would receive a month's wages (some none). Sarah Rose's No Right to be Idle goes into great detail on what life was like for people who had suffered on the job injuries and struggled to find jobs. People like your ancestor would struggle to find any job willing to accommodate as the government did not have any legislation that required it. Usually the spouse would attempt to find work but (if the wife had to work) it would always be a pay cut since they would be paid less than men. If there was no spouse, the children would leave school to find work. Unions were more in place to negotiate wages rather than provide assistance.

abbot_x

OP, are your sure the individual in question didn't receive workers' compensation? The Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act was passed in 1915. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't have applied to a miner injured at work.

I suspect people may be under the misapprehension workers' compensation was a New Deal era reform, like Social Security. This is incorrect: it was basically a Progressive era reform imitating similar European schemes enacted mostly in the late 19th century. All but 5 of the 48 states had workers' compensation by 1920, with the last 5 adopting it by 1948. As was the case elsewhere, the Pennsylvania Act was the product of a grand compromise between business and labor interests. In comparison to the prior system under which the injured worker sued the employer in court and attempted to overcome the employer's formidable common-law defenses, worker's compensation allowed a faster and more reliable system of compensation that was also less expensive for the employer and led to cooperation in the reduction of accidents.

Granted, a workers' compensation award probably would not have been sufficient to support a seriously injured person for life.