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.

Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), spoke on this at the memorial, saying “You can open up any textbook and find the name of the murderer, Rockefeller, but you will never find the names of the workers that bravely stood up for all working people!”

The Ludlow Massacre Memorial is held annually to serve as a reminder for working-class people of the struggles that took place to advance the labor movement. Coal miners at Ludlow were demanding better wages, an eight-hour day, less company control, a safer workplace, and the right to organize. When the miners went on strike over these issues, they were evicted from the company towns and forced to set up a colony of tents outside the mines. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who owned Colorado Fuel and Iron, hired private guards and worked with the Colorado National Guard to bring an end to the strike. The result was a massacre; tents were burned down, miners were shot, and many suffocated from the smoke of the fires. In all, 21 deaths were recorded, 11 of which were miners’ children.

The Teamsters who visited Ludlow had their own experiences of fighting the bosses. Just the day before, management called the police on the rank-and-file Teamsters for their distributing information about contractual and legal rights outside of their UPS hub. Their bosses saw workers fighting for better working conditions and tried to use force to remove them by alerting the police. The attempt did not work.

Bob Butero, the regional director of the UMWA, spoke to the crowd of people attending the memorial, stating, “You need to take this back with you, we cannot let this history die. It is up to us to keep it alive.” Teamsters Local 455 seeks to keep the history alive by returning to the Ludlow Massacre Memorial every year.

#DenverCO #CO #Labor #Teamsters #UMWA #LudlowMassacre #LaborHistory

Denver, CO – On Sunday, June 23, a group of Teamsters from Denver attended the Ludlow, Colorado memorial service in Las Animas County, almost 200 miles south of Denver. Ludlow is the site of the Ludlow Massacre, a horrific 1914 attack by the National Guard and a mine owners’ militia that resulted in approximately 21 deaths. Victims included wives and children of striking miners.

The Ludlow Massacre was the height of action of the 1913-14 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) strike in Colorado, and, as historian Howard Zinn describes, it was “the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history.” Tensions were building far before the day of the massacre, however, and these tensions were rooted deeply in the struggle of the coal miners against John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s Colorado Fuel and Iron company.

Miners at the time were demanding better wages, an eight-hour day, less company control, and the right to organize. They also demanded a safer workplace – coal mines at the time were up to ten times as dangerous as other workplaces in the country and Colorado’s fatality rate for miners was double the national average.

Many of the families at Ludlow were European immigrants or local Chicano workers, and there were at least 24 languages spoken at the site. This diverse group was able to maintain solidarity throughout the entirety of the strike. At the memorial service, UMWA President Cecil Roberts spoke on this, noting that in the coal mines, “we are all the same.”

The strike came after a series of mining accidents where dozens of miners were killed. When their basic demands were not met, and they went on strike. At the time, miners were living in company towns outside the mine, but strikers were evicted after the strike was announced. Approximately 200 tents, housing about 1200 miners and their families, were built outside the town in response, and this became the site of the massacre. There were several incidents of violence throughout the strike leading up to the massacre, mostly perpetrated by the company and National Guard.

Mother Jones, notably, was present through the strike and was arrested at least twice in Colorado, serving prison time there. Throughout the strike, according to UMWA President Roberts, machine guns were placed along the camp and occasionally shot into the camp seemingly at random. At times, tents were destroyed through such actions, and injuries and fatalities followed.

The tensions became untenable the day after Orthodox Easter on April 19, 1914. That Sunday was spent in celebration among the miners, and a baseball game was held where even National Guardsmen participated. The day after, however, was bloody and brutal; shots rang out from both sides and company men set part of the camp on fire. Gunfire was exchanged throughout the morning. In an act of solidarity, a train conductor in a passing train stopped on the tracks separating the machine guns from the miners, blocking the bullets. By the end, however, 21 had been killed, many of whom were suffocated by smoke from the fire. After the massacre, miners engaged in armed resistance during the “Ten Days War,” where at least 50 more people died. The strike continued until December and was eventually lost by the miners.

Those who died for justice in the massacre are remembered at the memorial, while the National Guardsmen and company men who murdered them are forgotten. Of the 21 on the plaque at the memorial, 11 were children, ranging from three months old to 11 years. Many who died as a result of the brutal repression from Rockefeller’s men are nameless, forgotten to the history books, yet their example and their determination to fight for their fellow workers needs to be remembered.

The memorial service was not somber; Roberts and UMWA International District 22 Vice President Michael Dalpiaz gave rousing speeches full of righteous anger and statements of solidarity. Dalpiaz states, “We didn’t do it for any reason other than justice for coal miners and working class people.” Roberts notes that Ludlow is not in the history books in schools, but you open any book and “Rockefeller’s name is in there.”

An estimated 15 to 20 unions were represented at the memorial service, and several attendees were descendants of miners who worked at Ludlow. All were there in solidarity with the honorable fight that the Ludlow miners put up that continues to this day. As we are reminded by Mother Jones, “Above all, you must fight!” While many workers today are not living in company towns or tent colonies, all workers share so much with the brave fighters at Ludlow, and to not carry on their struggle is a betrayal of their memory. As one plaque at the memorial says, “We remember the Ludlow martyrs for the courageous stand they took so many years ago on our behalf. We forget their struggle and sacrifice at our peril.”

Ludlow may remain outside the realm of popular history books, but their fight was done for us. Let us continue the struggle, and fight on the behalf of those living 100 and more years from now, just as the Ludlow miners did. Forward with the struggle!

#DenverCO #CO #Labor #Teamsters #UWMA #LaborHistory

Milwaukee, WI – On Sunday, May 7, 150 people gathered for the annual commemoration of the Bay View Massacre. 137 years ago, in May 1886, over 14,000 union workers gathered outside the Milwaukee Iron Company Rolling Mill in demand of an eight-hour workday. These unionists had shut down every single business in the city of Milwaukee except the rolling mills in Bay View. As they were marching towards the mills, Governor Jeremiah Rusk ordered 250 national guard members be posted outside to prevent any striker from entering – these orders included shooting the marchers on sight and resulted in the death of seven people and many others injured.

This year’s commemoration saw new faces in leading roles as the Wisconsin Labor History Society sought to bring in young union leaders of Milwaukee. Piper Hogan, a militant member of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals and active within the Young Workers Committee of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, was the host for the event and stressed the importance of honoring labor history events in our community as a reminder that workers’ rights are still under attack today. There was a powerful balance between Piper’s speaking and the theatrics of the reenactment of the tragedy, which included 20-foot tall puppets.

The event concluded with a speech by Alan Chavoya, a member of American Federation of Teachers Local 212 and the outreach chair for the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which represented the Coalition to Save Saint Francis Hospital and their struggle to reopen the labor and delivery unit there. He connected the struggles of the past to the struggles of the present.

“Thousands marched, and what did the Rolling Mill do? They deployed the local militia, killing seven people. Rolling Mill’s legacy is one that is aligned with violent repression of workers in our city. Whether it was in the 1920s and 30s when the police would be deployed against the workers on strike, or the police killing working-class Black and Latino people in Milwaukee. That’s their history,” Chavoya said.

He continued, “Our history is the history of the thousands of brave workers who led the struggle 137 years ago. Of the seven martyrs. This is the history that the Coalition to Save Saint Francis Hospital is carrying forward.”

Chavoya spoke on how the health care company Ascension has already created unsafe working conditions by severely understaffing its hospitals, which in turn creates an unsafe hospital for the community. Ascension has a history of closing down departments in an effort to cut costs – with labor and delivery units being the first department to shut down at other facilities before the company shuts down the entire hospital. Alan said the coalition demands Ascension reopen the labor and delivery unit at Saint Francis and will refuse to allow the company to shut down access to any other services at the hospital.

“So, as we continue with today’s commemoration of the people killed in the Bay View Massacre, we must recognize,” Chavoya said, “that the major victories in our city to advance the interest of our people come from organized workers and community organizations forging an alliance capable of fighting back!”

#MilwaukeeWI #laborHistory