Today in Labor History April 20, 1914: National Guards opened fire on a mining camp during a strike in Ludlow, Colorado, killing five miners, two women, and twelve children. By the end of the strike, they had killed more than 75 people. The strike involved 10,000 members of the united Mine Workers of America (UMW), 1,200 of whom had been living in the Ludlow tent colony. Many of the “Guards” were actually goons and vigilantes hired by the Ludlow Mine Field owner, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. During the assault, they opened fire on strikers and their families with machine guns and set fire to the camp.

Mining was (and still is) a dangerous job. At the time, Colorado miners were dying on the job at a rate of more than 7 deaths per 1,000 employees. The working conditions were not only unsafe, but terribly unfair, too. Workers were paid by the ton for coal that they extracted, but weren’t paid for so-called “dead work” like shoring up unstable roofs and tunnels. This system encouraged miners to risk their lives by ignoring safety precautions and preparations so that they would have more time to extract and deliver coal. Miners also lived in “company towns” where the boss not only owned their housing and the stores that supplied their food and clothing, but charged inflated prices for these services. Furthermore, the workers were paid in “scrip,” a currency that was valid only in the company towns. So even if workers had a way to get to another store, they had no money to purchase anything. Therefore, much of what the miners earned went back into the pockets of their bosses.

In the wake of the Ludlow Massacre, bands of armed miners attacked mine guards and anti-union establishments. In nearby Trinidad, they openly distributed arms from the UMWA headquarters. Over the next ten days, miners attacked mines, killing or driving off guards and scabs, and setting building on fire. They also fought sporadic skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard. In June of 1914, a number of anarchists decided to seek revenge on Rockefeller. Alexander Berkman (a former lover, and friend, of Emma Goldman) helped plan the assassination at the New York Ferrer Center. This was also the home to the anarchist Modern School, which Berkman helped create. However, the bomb exploded prematurely, killing three anarchists. These events led to infiltration of the school and center by undercover cops.

You can read my complete article on Ludlow and the Colorado Labor Wars here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/20/the-ludlow-massacre/

And my complete article on the Modern School Movement here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2022/04/30/the-modern-school-movement/

Today in Labor History March 17, 1966: 100 striking Mexican American and Filipino farmworkers marched from Delano, California to Sacramento to pressure the growers and the state government to answer their demands for better working conditions and higher wages, which were, at the time, below the federal minimum wage. By the time the marchers arrived, on Easter Sunday, April 11, the crowd had grown to 10,000 protesters and their supporters. A few months later, the two unions that represented them, the National Farm Workers Association, led by César Chávez, and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, joined to form the United Farm Workers. The strike was launched on September 8, 1965, by Filipino grape pickers. Mexicans were initially hired as scabs. So, Filipino strike leader Larry Itliong approached Cesar Chavez to get the support of the National Farm Workers Association, and on September 16, 1965, the Mexican farm workers joined the strike. During the strike, the growers and their vigilantes would physically assault the workers and drive their cars and trucks into the picket lines. They also sprayed strikers with pesticides. The strikers persevered nonviolently. They went to the Oakland docks and convinced the longshore workers to support them by refusing to load grapes. This resulted in the spoilage of 1,000 ten-ton cases of grapes. The success of this tactic led to the decision to launch a national grape boycott, which would ultimately help them win the struggle against the growers.

Today in Labor History March 9, 1911: Frank Little and other free-speech fighters were released from jail in Fresno, California, where they had been fighting for the right to speak to and organize workers on public streets. Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” 1917, he helped organize the Speculator Mine strike in Butte, Montana. Vigilantes broke into his boarding house, dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car, and then lynched him from a railroad trestle. Prior to Little’s assassination, Author Dashiell Hammett had been asked by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to murder him. Hammett declined.

Read my full bio of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #freespeech #indigenous #nativeamerican #cherokee #franklittle #civilrights #nonviolence #racism #vigilantes #lynching #author #writer #fiction #books @bookstadon

Today in Labor History February 17, 1936: The United Rubber Workers launched a sit-down strike at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers formed in 1935 in response to the depression, low wages and poor working conditions. The union regularly used the sit-down strike. It was particularly effective on the assembly line because workers who refused to work up the line, prevented anyone down the line from working, even if they hadn’t planned to strike. It also kept the workers on the premises, making it harder to bring in scab workers. The IWW tried to organize the rubber workers in the 1910s. However, vigilantes and martial law crushed their organizing drive.

“Three men wearing MAGA hats and Department of Government Efficiency T-Shirts stormed several offices inside San Francisco City Hall Friday demanding that workers hand over documents, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The employees refused their requests and called sheriff’s deputies, at which time the individuals fled the building.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/suspected-doge-impersonators-storm-s-f-city-20168581.php
#ElonMusk #DOGE #coup #MAGA #vigilantes #SanFrancisco #bayarea

Today in Labor History February 10, 1913: Rubber workers belonging to the Industrial Workers of the World went on strike in Akron, Ohio. It was one of the most effective organizing drives to date among the rubber workers of Akron. However, the bosses still crushed the strike with vigilantes and martial law. In 1936, they went on a sit-down strike.

Today in Labor History February 1, 1913: The IWW Patterson silk workers’ strike began. They were fighting for an 8-hr work day and better working conditions. Over the course of the strike, 1,850 workers were arrested, including Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Within the first two weeks of the strike, they had brought out workers from all the local mills in a General Strike of weavers and millworkers. Two workers died in the struggle, one shot by a vigilante and the other by a private guard. The strike ended in failure on July 28.

Today in Labor History February 1, 1912: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) started the San Diego Free Speech Fight in response to a city ordinance preventing public speaking in and around the Stingaree neighborhood (now known as the Gaslamp Quarter). The authorities were trying to squelch labor and radical organizing in the multi-ethnic, working-class neighborhood, infamous for its houses of prostitution, gambling dens, opium dens and Chinese ghetto. Even as late as the 1980s, it still had a skid row feel, with its multitude of tattoo parlors, bars, sailors, junkies and fascination parlors. As a kid, I remember watching the con artists running games of 3-Card Monte on the sidewalks there.

The IWW had been active in San Diego since 1906. They organized timber workers and cigar makers, as well as workers at San Diego Consolidated Gas and Electric Company. Their strike at the power company led to the formation of a public service union, which disbanded in 1911, when many Wobblies flocked to Tijuana to join the anarchist Magonista revolution there. For more on this, read “The Desert Revolution,” by Lowell Blaisdell.

As the Free Speech fight progressed, anarchists, socialists and liberals joined the struggle, deliberately speaking in the restricted zone so that the jails would overflow. And they all demanded individual trials in order to clog up the legal system. Jail conditions were horrendous. Prisoners were crowded into the drunk tanks and forced to sleep on vermin-infested floors. Beatings were routine. 63-year-old Michael Hoy died from a police beating in jail. The IWW called on members from across the country to ride the rails to San Diego to join the fight. At least 5,000 heeded the call.

The local papers, of course, ran countless editorials attacking the radicals and glorifying the police. This encouraged vigilantes, who’d patrol the rail yards looking for incoming Wobblies. They deported many across county lines where they forced them to kiss the flag and run through gauntlets of men who beat them with pick axe handles. On May 7, the cops killed another Wobbly, Joseph Mikolash. And on May 15, vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, the vigilantes tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane. Ben Reitman was a physician who focused his practice on providing treatment for tramps, hobos, prostitutes and the most marginalized members of society. He also wrote the book “Boxcar Bertha.” The July 11, 1912 edition of the IWW’s “Little Red Songbook” included the song: “We’re Bound for San Diego:”

In that town called San Diego, when the workers try to talk,
The cops will smash them with a sap and tell them “take a walk.”
They throw them in a bull pen and they feed them rotten beans.
And they call that “law and order” in the city, so it seems.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #sandiego #freespeech #policebrutality #prison #IWW #anarchism #Revolution #socialism #strike #magonista #Tijuana #vigilantes #EmmaGoldman #policebrutality #policeabuse #acab #mexico #books #author #writer #fiction #nonfiction @bookstadon

I WILL NOT BE LECTURED TO by supporters/defenders of #vigilantes like #GeorgeZimmerman (murdered #Travon), #Kyle #Rittenhouse (anti-#BLM shooter), subway vigilante #DanielPenny, or the #Jan6 rioters (whom the President-Elect calls "hostages" and vows to #pardon after attacking the #CapitolPolice, murdering one officer and seriously injuring dozens more)... for expressing mere "comprehension" of what may have motivated the #UnitedHealthcare CEO murderer.

Today in Labor History November 22, 1909: The “Uprising of the 20,000” occurred in New York, as female, mostly Jewish, garment workers went on strike for better pay and an end to sweatshop working conditions. It was also known as the Shirtwaist Strike. 19-year-old Clara Lemlich, who led the strike, said she had no patience for talk and called for her coworkers to join in a General Strike. She made this speech not long after leaving the hospital after thugs had beat her up. By February, their strike had won some gains for workers, like a raise and a reduction in work hours to 52 hours per week, but did not end sweatshop conditions in the industry. During the strike, a Judge told arrested picketers, "You are on strike against God." The Triangle Shirtwaist fire occurred one year later.

In the black of the winter of nineteen-nine
When we froze & bled on the picket line,
We showed the world that women could fight
& we rose & won with women's might.

Hail the waistmakers of nineteen-nine
Making their stand on the picket line,
Breaking the power of those who reign,
Pointing the way, smashing the chain.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #shirtwaist #union #strike #jewish #immigrant #newyork #claralemlich #GeneralStrike #sweatshop #vigilantes

Border Militias Prepare to Assist With Donald #Trump’s Mass #Deportation Plans - https://www.wired.com/story/border-militias-immigrants-trump/ "Militias that patrol the US border with Mexico are thrilled that Donald Trump has been elected—and plan to be a “valuable resource” to the incoming administration, whether or not they’re asked." here come the bullyboy #vigilantes, there goes the rule of #law....

"Photos of a Vigilante Deportation in 1917" https://markstoneman.com/2024/11/10/photos-of-a.html (4 images with alt text on the blog) #Deportation #Vigilantes #EverythingHasAHistory

Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was referenced in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #anarchism #Everett #massacre #vigilantes #police #policebrutality #union #strike #books #fiction #novel #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History September 17, 1901: Twenty-five Italian anarchists and their families were terrorized and driven out of town by vigilantes in Guffey Hollow, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were miners and the attack came in the wake of the assassination of President McKinnley, by the anarchist Leon Czogosz.

Today in Labor History August 27, 1934: 7,000 Filipino lettuce cutters and mainly white packing shed workers went on strike against the powerful Salinas Valley growers and shippers, demanding union recognition & improved wages and working conditions. Many of the white workers were Dust Bowl refugees. Most of the Filipino workers had immigrated as U.S. nationals, after the U.S. took over the Philippines, in the wake of the Spanish-American and Filipino-American Wars, the latter of which included a genocide in which a quarter of a million Filipino civilians died of famine and disease. There was rampant persecution of Filipino workers in California. Laws prohibited Filipino women from immigrating to the U.S. and prevented Filipino men from consorting with Anglo women. The American Federation of Labor initially refused to recognize or support the Filipino Labor Union (FLU). Scabs and vigilantes viciously beat Filipino strikers and chased 800 out of the Salinas Valley at gunpoint. They also burned down a labor camp. Police arrested picketers and union leaders for violation of the Criminal Syndicalism laws (laws that prohibited advocating any change to the economic and political status quo). The FLU ultimately won a raise and union recognition. However, discrimination and racist violence against Filipinos continued.

Steinbeck wrote about the plight of Filipino migrant farmworkers in the Salinas Valley in a 1936 series of articles for the San Francisco News called “The Harvest of Gypsies,” which formed part of the basis for his novel, Grapes of Wrath. He said they were among the most discriminated, and best organized, ethnic group in the U.S. Their organizing, he went on to say, brought on terrorism against them by vigilantes and the government.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #filipino #salinas #farmworkers #racism #immigration #colonialism #police #policebrutality #vigilantes #dustbowl #steinbeck #journalism #books #author #writer #fiction @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 8, 1903: A miners' strike began in Cripple Creek, Colorado. It was part of the Colorado Labor Wars (1903-1904). Mine owners used private police, vigilantes and thugs, as well as the state militia, to attacked striking gold and silver miners, who were organized with the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). It was one of the most well-organized and systematic uses of violence by business owners against their own employees in U.S. history. The Cripple Creek strike was the 2nd strike there in 6 months. Many union members were beaten by vigilantes and cops. They burned down one striker’s house. The governor banned Mother Jones from entering the state. By September, there were over 1,000 national guard troops in the small town of Cripple Creek, along with 60,000 rounds of ammunition.

A year and a half later, Harry Orchard, WFM organizer at Cripple Creek, and secret agent for the Pinkertons, assassinated Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho. The Pinkertons, led by James McParland, tried to pin it on WFM organizer, and future cofounder of the IWW, Big Bill Haywood. Super lawyer Clarence Darrow got Haywood acquitted. McParland was also the Pinkerton spy, and agent provocateur who planned and helped implement numerous murders and assault in Pennsylvania’s coal country, in the 1870s, leading to the wrongful convictions and hangings of 20 innocent union men, who he accused of being Molly Maguire terrorists. McParland, under his pseudonym, Jimmy McKenna, plays a major role in my first novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” and my work in progress, Red Hot Summer in the Big smoke.

You can get “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” from any of these indie retailers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/

As well as here: https://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-but-Schuylkill-Michael-Dunn-ebook/dp/B0CJVW1BP2

You can read my complete article about the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

And my article on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Pinkertons #MollyMaguires #IWW #wfm #bigbillhaywood #colorado #mining #union #strike #vigilantes #police #policebrutality #books #author #writer #novel #fiction #historicalfiction @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 1, 1921: Sheriff Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers were murdered by Baldwin-Felts private cops. They did it in retaliation for Hatfield’s role in the Matewan labor battle in 1920, when two Felts family thugs were killed by Hatfield and his deputies, who had sided with the coal miners during their strike. The private cops executed Hatfield and Chambers on the Welch County courthouse steps in front of their wives. This led to the Battle of Blair Mountain, where 20,000 coal miners marched to the anti-union stronghold Logan County to overthrow Sheriff Dan Chaffin, the coal company tyrant who murdered miners with impunity. The Battle of Blair Mountain started in September 1921. The armed miners battled 3,000 cops, private cops and vigilantes, who were backed by the coal bosses. It was the largest labor uprising in U.S. history, and the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. The president of the U.S. eventually sent in 27,000 national guards. Over 1 million rounds were fired. Up to 100 miners were killed, along with 10-30 Baldwin-Felts detectives and 3 national guards. They even dropped bombs on the miners from planes, the second time in history that the U.S. bombed its own citizens (the first being the pogrom against black residents of Tulsa, earlier that same year).

Several novels portray the Battle of Blair Mountain, including Storming Heaven, by Denise Giardina, (1987), Blair Mountain, by Jonathan Lynn (2006), and Carla Rising, by Topper Sherwood (2015). And one of my favorite films of all time, “Matewan,” by John Sayles (1987), portrays the Matewan Massacre and the strike leading up to it. The film has a fantastic soundtrack of Appalachian music from the period. And the great West Virginia bluegrass singer, Hazel Dickens, sings the title track, "Fire in the Hole." She also appears in the film as a member of the Freewill Baptist Church.

You can read my complete article on the Battle of Blair Mountain, and Matewan, here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/14/the-battle-of-blair-mountain/