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Labor Day Rememberance: United Mine Workers of America
"Pray for the dead, but fight like Hell for the living." -- Mother JonesAll of the information below may be found at the web site for the United Mine Workers of America. A history of the UMWA may be found here: http://www.umwa.org/?q=content/brief-history-umwa
What they sacrificed...
The Lattimer Massacre
The anthracite miners of northeastern Pennsylvania were early members of the UMWA. In 1897, anthracite miners were faced with low wages, poor working conditions and sporadic work. The miners struck to improve these conditions, but poor coal market conditions led coal operators to harden their opposition to the miners' demands. The companies decided on a show of force by their own company police and by the cooperative sheriff of Luzerne County, James Martin. On Labor Day, thousands of non-union miners who were UMWA supporters marched peacefully in the anthracite mining towns. In the following days more marches occurred. Anxious to avoid violence, the UMWA leaders urged marchers not to carry even walking sticks, though American flags abounded.
On September 10, the strikers marched to Lattimer and were stopped by a force led by Sheriff Martin. The unexpected halt led to confusion and jostling, and shots suddenly rang out. Nineteen of the miners were killed, and perhaps fifty more were wounded, in what became known as the Lattimer Massacre. Although the violence was committed by the so-called forces of law and was needless the sheriff had dispersed larger, rowdier crowds alone in previous confrontations no one was convicted for the murders at Lattimer.
The primary result of the massacre was rapid growth in unionism in the anthracite region. During the next four months approximately 15,000 new names were added to the UMWA rolls.
The Ludlow Massacre
The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 19 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Upon striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The massacre occurred in a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strike breakers. They shot and burned to death 18 striking miners and their families and one company man. Four women and 11 small children died holding each other under burning tents. Later investigations revealed that kerosine had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.
The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun—the Death Special— that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter were ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.
A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.
In December, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated the Ludlow site as a National Historic Landmark. "This is the culmination of years of work by UMWA members, retirees and staff, as well as many hundreds of ordinary citizens who have fought to preserve the memory of this brutal attack on workers and their families," UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said.
"The tragic lessons from Ludlow still echo throughout our nation, and they must never be forgotten by Americans who truly care about workplace fairness and equality," Roberts said. "With this designation, the story of what happened at Ludlow will remain part of our nation's history. That is as it should be."
The dedication ceremony was held at Ludlow on June 28, 2009.
Matewan
In the early spring of 1920, unorganized coal miners in Mingo County, West Virginia began seeking to join the UMWA. The coal operators became alarmed by the organizing activity and locked out the miners. On May 19, 1920, twelve men were killed at Matewan, West Virginia in a gun fight in which the local police and the people of Matewan faced a group of hoodlums hired by the infamous Baldwin Felts Detective Agency at the behest of the coal operators to unlawfully evict miners from their homes.
In the Matewan battle, Albert Felts, wearing a badge as a "deputy sheriff" of Harlan County, Kentucky, fired the first shot but was killed by Matewan Chief of Police Sid Hatfield. Hatfield had warned the thugs that they had no legal warrants to evict the citizens of Matewan and that he would not permit eviction without proper legal procedures. Felts then attempted to forcibly arrest the Chief of Police. Felts had been one of the chief gunmen used by the coal operators in the Ludlow, Colorado massacre in 1914, in which twenty persons were killed, including twelve women and children who were burned alive in their tents.
Sid Hatfield, a hero to West Virginia miners, was himself killed in August of 1921 in Welch, West Virginia by C. E. Lively, a Baldwin Felts gunman. Hatfield's murder was in all likelihood a set-up. He was arrested on July 28 on an allegation that he had shot up the town of Mohawk more than a year before. He was taken from his home town of Matewan to McDowell County, West Virginia, a stronghold of anti-UMWA coal operators. As he entered the court house with Ed Chambers, who had been called as a witness, both were shot down in front of their wives by Lively and two other gunmen. No charges were brought against Lively or the other murderers.
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
"Pray for the dead, but fight like Hell for the living."
Mary Harris Jones was a powerful UMWA organizer and workers advocate in the early 1900s. She was fearless in standing up to corporate executives, governors and gun thugs. She was thrown into jails and vilified by the public press for advancing the cause of coal miners and other workers.
Because of her courage and indefatigable spirit, she became known as the Miners' Angel. Wherever the miners were on strike, there you would find Mother Jones, giving the miners inspiration and advice. She was involved in the Lattimer strike in Pennsylvania in 1897, the Ludlow strike in Colorado in 1913, and the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek strikes in West Virginia in 1920.
Mother Jones died in 1931 at the age of 100 after fighting for workers for more than half a century.
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