American Decades
Boyle, W. A. ("Tony") 1904-1985
UNITED MINE WORKERS PRESIDENT
Symbol of Corruption.
As president of the United Mine Workers (UMW) from 1963 to 1972, W. A. ("Tony") Boyle came to represent the increasingly corrupt and ineffective nature of many labor unions in the United States.
Quick Rise.
A longtime member of the UMW, Boyle rose quickly through the leader-ship ranks. In 1948 Boyle moved to Washington, D.C., to be administrative assistant to union president John L. Lewis, who took Boyle as his protégé. When Lewis retired as president in 1960, Boyle became vice-president under President Thomas Kennedy. Kennedy was old and sick when he became president, and Boyle exercised most of the power in the union. In 1963 Kennedy died, and Boyle finally became president of the UMW.
Authoritarian Style.
Like Lewis before him, Boyle ran a centralized, authoritarian union, which had little patience with worker democracy or power sharing....
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1970's Business and the Economy
