Today in labor history April 20 one of labor's deadliest days, the Ludlow Massacre

[Omaha Steve]

April 20

10,000 demonstrators celebrate textile workers’ win of a 10-percent pay hike and grievance committees after a one-month strike, Lowell, Mass. - 1912




April 20, 1914 - John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. brought in state militia and company gunmen to break a strike by 10,000 members of the United Mine Workers of America. They fired machine guns and set fire to a tent colony of strikers and their families. Fourteen women and children were killed in what is remembered as the Ludlow Massacre.

For more information on Ludlow, go to http://www.umwa.org/history/ludlow.shtml and http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5737/


April 20, 1948 - United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther was shot and seriously wounded by would-be assassins. The charismatic labor leader died in a plane crash in 1970.

For more on the life of Walter Reuther, see http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5737/


National Association of Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers & Group Leaders merge with Laborers - 1968

[Trajan]

1. I wonder if the current Senator Rockefeller ....

Has ever discussed the matter of the Ludlow Massacre .... Worker rights have been hard fought for so many decades now, but it is being whittled down through complacency and legislation intended to break the backs of american worker's unions ....

I wonder if the heyday for working American families is past us ?

[struggle4progress]

2. We will win the fight today, boys

We'll win the fight today
Shouting the battle cry of union
We will rally from the coal mines
We'll battle to the end
Shouting the battle cry of union ...

We're coming, Colorado (Frank J. Hayes)
Tune: "The battle cry of freedom" (1913)
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/werecomi.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Colorado Coal Field War Project Photo Galleries

The Colorado Coal Strike was one of the most violent strikes in United States History. Although they were ultimately defeated, the coal miners in this strike held out for 14 months in makeshift tent colonies on the Colorado prairie. The strike resulted in an estimated 66 deaths and an unknown number of wounded ...

http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/cfphoto.html

[struggle4progress]

4. Chapter XXI: In Rockefeller's prisons

... The miners armed, armed as it is permitted every American citizen to do in defense of his home, his family; as he is permitted to do against invasion. The smoke of armed battle rose from the arroyos and ravines of the Rocky Mountains.

No one listened. No one cared. The tickers in the offices of 26 Broadway sounded louder than the sobs of women and children. Men in the steam heated luxury of Broadway offices could not feel the stinging cold of Colorado hill-sides where families lived in tents.

Then came Ludlow and the nation heard. Little children roasted alive make a front page story. Dying by inches of starvation and exposure does not ...

http://www.eclipse.net/~basket42/mojones.htm