Representatives of the Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the Western Federation of Miners, asked for a wage increase of fifty cents per day for all mine workers not already making three dollars per day. The union felt justified, for fifty cents a day had been cut from the miners' wages during the depression of 1893. Negotiations broke down and 968 miners walked out. Mine owners, who had formed a Mine Owners' Association with a secret anti-union agreement, locked out another 1,332 mine workers.