The Workingmen's Benevolent Association was a 19th-century labor organization that consisted mainly of coal miners.
[4] Two unarmed strikers were shot and killed in Scranton during the 1871 strike by mine owners' guards.
John Siney also headed[5] the Miners' and Laborers' Benevolent Association.
The Miners' and Laborers' Benevolent Association was formed in 1870, and in 1872 it became a national union in the bituminous fields of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Michigan.
In 1870 the Pennsylvania state legislature gave the society a charter (as a labor union) and the name was changed to the Miners and Laborers’ Benevolent Association, but it continued to be called, except officially, by its prior name—the Workingmen's Benevolent Association.