Today in Labor History March 6, 1978: President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley law to quash the 1977-78 national contract strike by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The UMWA had been on strike since December 1977, but rejected a tentative contract agreement in early March, 1978. Carter invoked the national emergency provision of Taft-Hartley and ordered strikers back to work. They ignored the order and the government did little to enforce it. By late March, they reached a settlement. Taft-Hartley was enacted in the wake of the strike wave of 1945-1946 and was designed to prevent solidarity strikes and General Strikes. Until the recent General Strike in Minneapolis, the last General Strikes in U.S. history occurred in 1946 in Lancaster, PA; Stamford, CT; Rochester, NY; and Oakland, CA, just prior to the creation of Taft-Hartley.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #strike #GeneralStrike #union #solidarity #TaftHartley #oakland #UMWA #POTUS #UnitedMineWorkers

https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-trump-administration-has-found-a-sneaky-way-to-keep-killing-coal-miners

#Appalachia #LabourMovement #mineworkers #Organize #Silicosis #Solidarity #Trumpocracy #unions
#UMWA

Denver Teamsters visit the Ludlow Massacre Memorial

Denver, CO – On June 22, eight Teamsters from Local 455 in Denver drove 200 miles south to attend the Ludlow Massacre Memorial near Trinidad, Colorado. For some, it was their first exposure to this type of history. Working class history is seldom taught in schools, and when it is, it is often taught from the perspective of the bosses.

https://fightbacknews.org/articles/denver-teamsters-visit-the-ludlow-massacre-memorial

Today in Labor History March 6, 1978: President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley law to quash the 1977-78 national contract strike by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The UMWA had been on strike since December 1977, but rejected a tentative contract agreement in early March, 1978. Carter invoked the national emergency provision of Taft-Hartley and ordered strikers back to work. They ignored the order and the government did little to enforce it. By late March, they reached a settlement. Taft-Hartley was enacted in the wake of the strike wave of 1945-1946 and was designed to prevent solidarity strikes and General Strikes. The last General Strike in U.S. history (Lancaster, PA; Stamford, CT; Rochester, NY; and Oakland, CA) occurred just prior to Taft-Hartley.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #strike #GeneralStrike #union #solidarity #TaftHartley #oakland #UMWA #POTUS #UnitedMineWorkers

Today in Labor History June 22, 1922: After guards shot and killed 3 striking miners at the Southern Illinois Coal Company, hundreds of union miners laid siege to the mine, using hammers, shovels and dynamite to wreck equipment and keep the strikebreakers pinned down inside coal cars and behind barricades. After the scabs, guards and superintendent surrendered, the strikers marched them into Herrin, five miles away. Along the way, they encountered a mob of angry miners. One of them shouted, "The only way to free the county of strikebreakers is to kill them all off and stop the breed!" Another said, “We must show the world this ain’t West Virginia,” referring to the Battle of Blair Mountain, nine months prior, in which up to 100 miners were killed in the largest armed domestic conflict since the Civil War. Then the mob grew angrier, striking the scabs with rifle butts, eventually telling them to run for their lives, shooting them as they ran. In total, they killed 19 scabs and the superintendent. Several strikers were eventually arrested and held in the Williamson County jail, which is now a historical museum focusing on the conflict. At the initial inquest, the coroner concluded that the deaths were “due to the acts direct and indirect of the officials of the Southern Illinois Coal Company." Those who were tried for the murders were all acquitted. None of the miners were ever convicted.

Read my article on the Battle of Blair Mountain here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/14/the-battle-of-blair-mountain/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #strike #union #umwa #scabs #massacre #coal #illinois #civilwar #herrin #mining #blairmountain

110th anniversary Radical Reprint (Freedom News) https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/06/16/radical-reprint-the-ludlow-strike/

It was early springtime when the strike was on,
They drove us miners out of doors,
Out from the houses that the Company owned,
We moved into tents up at old Ludlow.
- #WoodyGuthrie 1944

https://web.archive.org/web/20000824111029/http://members.fortunecity.com/folkfred/ludlow.html

Ludlow Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

#workingclasshistory #Ludlow #strike
#coal #miners #UMWA #union #Colorado #LouisTikas #MotherJones

The Battle of Blair Mountain (Aug 25-Sep 2, 1921) in Logan County, West Virginia, was the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War, and the largest labor uprising in U.S. history. 10,000-15,000 coal miners battled 3,000 cops, private cops and vigilantes, who were backed by the coal bosses. Up to 100 miners died in the fighting, along with 10-30 Baldwin-Felts detectives and three national guards. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested. One million rounds were fired. And the government bombed striking coal miners by air, using homemade bombs and poison gas left over from World War I. This was the second time the government had used planes to bomb its own citizens within the U.S. (the first was against African American during the Tulsa pogrom, earlier that same year).

From the late 1800s, mine owners forced workers to live in company towns. They deducted miners’ rent from their wages and paid them in scrip, which was worthless everywhere accept at the overpriced company stores. The work was extremely dangerous and safety equipment and precautions were minimal. And the mine owners routinely used private detectives and goons to spy on workers, infiltrate their meetings, beat them up, murder them, and block any attempts to unionize.

During the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike (April 1912 through July 1913), the sheriff and his deputies attacked the miners’ tent colony at Holly Grove, in West Virginia with the “Bull Moose Special” (an armored train fitted with machine guns). Mother Jones was one of the main organizers of this strike. Over 50 people died during the violent confrontations with scabs, goons and private detectives. Countless more died from starvation and malnutrition. In terms of casualties, it was one of the deadliest strikes in U.S. history.

Read the entire article here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/14/the-battle-of-blair-mountain/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #BattleOfBlairMountain #coal #mining #union #strike #westvirginia #matewan #motherjones #UMWA #police #prison #massacre #insurrection #bombing

Today in Labor History March 6, 1978: President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley law to quash the 1977-78 national contract strike by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The UMWA had been on strike since December 1977, but rejected a tentative contract agreement in early March, 1978. Carter invoked the national emergency provision of Taft-Hartley and ordered strikers back to work. They ignored the order and the government did little to enforce it. By late March, they reached a settlement. Taft-Hartley was enacted in the wake of the strike wave of 1945-1946 and was designed to prevent solidarity strikes and General Strikes. The last General Strike in U.S. history (Lancaster, PA; Stamford, CT; Rochester, NY; and Oakland, CA) occurred just prior to Taft-Hartley.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #strike #GeneralStrike #union #solidarity #TaftHartley #oakland #UMWA #POTUS #UnitedMineWorkers #solidarity

Today in Labor History January 6, 1970: West Virginia miners launched a wildcat strike to protest the murder of their union reform leader Joseph "Jock" Yablonski.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #union #strike #wildcat #mining #UMWA #murder #assassination #WestVirginia