Other Union Busting Efforts
During the 1902 coal strike, 14 miners were killed and 22 injured in Pana, Illinois. In 1904, a Dunnville, Colorado battle between state militia forces and workers left six dead, others injured, 15 arrested, and 79 exiled to Kansas.
During the 1909 New York shirtwaist strike, female garment workers were arrested, a judge telling them, "You are on strike against God." In March 1911, a fire at New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory killed 46, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions. They still exist today. Earlier articles discussed them, accessed through the following links:
Modern Slavery in America
Glbal Sweatshop Wage Slavery
In 1912, the IWW-led Lawrence, Massachutsetts Bread and Roses textile strike was largely successful. It was credited with inventing the moving picket line, a tactic to avoid arrest for loitering. Also in 1912, National Guard forces were used against striking West Virginia coal miners. In July that year, striking Brotherhood of Timber Workers were confronted by armed Galloway Lumber Company thugs, resulting in four deaths and dozens wounded, the incident called the Grabow Riot.
In 1913, New Orleans police shot three maritime workers, striking against the United Fruit Company. One died.
In 1914, Butte, Montana militia crushed striking Western Federation of Miners workers.
On January 19, 1915, famed labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah on bogus murder charges. Nonetheless, he was executed 21 months later. Before his death, he wrote Bill Haywood saying, "Don't mourn - organize!" The same day, Roosevelt, New Jersey factory guards shot 20 rioting strikers.
In 1916, Everett (Washington) Mills strikebreakers attacked and beat strikers. Police stood back without intervening, claiming the incident took place on federal land. Three days later, 22 unionists were arrested for speaking out. In October that year, IWW members were beaten, whipped, kicked and impaled for their activism. At their subsequent November 5 meeting, seven were shot and killed, 50 others wounded, and unknown numbers were unaccounted for.
Numerous other incidents at that time involved shootings, hangings, beatings, and arrests, unionists viciously attacked to disrupt them.
In 1919, nearly four million workers struck, including against against steel and coal companies. Management retaliated. The year's Great Steel Strike failed. Company owners called workers dangerous radicals threatening America. Federal and National Guard troops again were used, resulting in violence, deaths, injuries and arrests. From 1919 - 23, numerous coal strikes also occurred, government again siding with management.
In 1920, the Battle of Matewan resulted in nine deaths, later sparking an armed rebellion of 10,000 West Virginia coal miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest insurrection since the Civil War against which army troops intervened.
In 1922, the Herrin, Illinois coal strike massacre left 21 dead. In 1927, picketing coal miners were massacred in the company town of Serene, Colorado. In 1929, National Guard troops and armed thugs destroyed the National Textile Workers Union office during the Loray Mill Strike.
During the 1937 Little Steel strike, Youngstown Steel and Tube and Republic Steel employed hundreds of armed police who fired on strikers trying to prevent scabs from entering factories. On May 30, things exploded when Chicago police joined them, opening fire on picketing strikers and their families, killing 10 and injuring hundreds.
Earlier in the 1930s, unionists were convicted of criminal syndicalism. Vigilantes beat Harlan County, Kentucky strikers. Police killed striking Ford Dearborn, Michigan strikers. Four cotton workers were killed on strike. National Guard forces killed two Toledo, Ohio Electric Auto-Lite strikers, wounding hundreds. Police attacked and fired on striking Minneapolis Teamsters. Other deaths, beatings and arrests occurred throughout the decade, even after passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act.
In 1932, the Hoover administration warred on WW I veterans who were demanding promised bonuses. General Douglas MacArthur led government troops who burned their camps for marching peacefully for their rights.
In 1962, Jack Kennedy's Executive Order 10988 established limited collective bargaining rights for federal employees. It spawned state and local efforts to expand theirs.
In 1968, National Guard troops were used against Memphis, Tennessee sanitation worker strikers, days before Martin Luther King's assassination, there to support them. Violence followed, including beatings. A young unarmed boy was killed emerging from a housing development.
Union busting post-WW II was mostly nonviolent, but just as determined to deny workers their rights after passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. It greatly weakened union clout, allowing stiff penalties for noncompliance.
It enacted "unfair labor practices," prohibiting jurisdictional strikes (relating to worker job assignments), secondary boycotts (against companies doing business with others being struck), wildcat strikes, sit-downs, slow-downs, mass-picketing against scabs, closed shops (in which workers must join unions), union contributions to federal political campaigns (now freely given candidates), and more while legalizing employer interventions to prevent unionizing drives.
Serious erosion of union power to bargain collectively followed. As a result, employers can illegally fire union sympathizers and receive only minor wrist slap fines after years of expensive litigation to prove wrongdoing. Moreover, they can fire workers for any reason like incompetence or none at all. In addition, strikes are further neutralized because companies can hire replacements or threaten to move offshore.
Since the 1980s especially, earlier hard won rights significantly eroded after Reagan busted PATCO strikers, discussed in a previous article, accessed through the following link:
Wisconsin: Ground Zero to Save Public Worker Rights
From then to now, it's been all downhill to where private and public workers face losing all rights unless mass activism resists. Despite Wisconsin heroics, national actions are sorely lacking, largely because union bosses collude with management and political leaders against their own rank and file.
