administration. Increasingly, they began to adopt the forms of action used by other groups of workers. The first took place in 1872. It was local, limited, and unsuccessful. In 1889, the pent-up anger of the previous decades was unleashed in , in which roughly 90% of the 104,000 miners then working in the region participated. The strike began in Bochum on 24 April and Essen on 1 May. They were joined spontaneously by numerous other workers. A central strike committee was formed. The workers sought higher wages, the introduction of an eight-hour day, and various other changes. That the miners' old loyalty to authority had not been forgotten is shown by the fact that the strike committee sent a deputation to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Although he criticised the strike, he agreed to launch an official investigation of the strikes. Since the indicated a willingness to make concessions, the strike gradually petered out. The strike in the Westphalian and Rheinish coal mining areas provided a model for miners in Sauerland, the , and even in Silesia in the same year. Moreover, the strike had clearly shown that organisation was necessary to advocate for workers' interests. On 18 August 1889, what which would later be known as the "Alte Verband" ("Old Union") was established in Dotmund-Dorstfeld. The Christian Miners' Union was founded in 1894 and a Polish Union in 1902. The began attempts at organisation in the 1880s, but remained insignificant. With respect to unionisation, the miners also provided a model for other groups of workers. In 1905, broke out in the Bochum region, which grew into a general strike of all mining unions. In total, around 78% of miners in the region participated in the strike. Although it eventually had to break up, it had indirect success, since the Prussian government met many of the workers' demands through revisions to the General Mining Act. In 1912, the Alte Verband, Polish Union and the Hirsch-Dunckersche Union joined together in a , although the Christian Miners' Union refused to lend its support. As a result, strike participation reached only about 60%. The strike was prosecuted with great bitterness and violent riots led the police and military to intervene in the end. The strike eventually broke up without success. Alongside the miners, Westphalian workers in other areas also participated in the labour movement. In the metal industry, these actions were focused on small and