1927–1928 Colorado coal strike

Labor strike in Colorado, US February 2025 1927-1928 Colorado coal strike the Coal Wars frameless|upright=1.7 October 18, 1927 – May 1928 Colorado Union victory, $1/day wage increase Industrial Workers of the World Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. Colorado Rangers Policehttp://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-colorado-fuel-and-iron-company/the-strike-of-1927 The Strike of 1927 Schreck Christopher 6 November 2019 Kristin Svanum A. S. Embree Adam Bell; Amelia Milka Sablich Jesse F. Welborn; Louis Scherf Deaths: 8 killedInjured: ~201927-11-23 STATE TROOPS KEEP ORDER IN COLORADO; Striking Coal Miners Are Quiet Following Monday's Fatal Clash Near Denver. SAY THEY WILE AVOID FORCE National Guardsmen Quartered in Mines -- Civil Liberties Union Here Protests to Governor Adams The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/11/23/archives/state-troops-keep-order-in-colorado-striking-coal-miners-are-quiet.html Survey Associates https://archive.org/details/surveycharityorg59survrich/page/644/mode/2up The Survey Charity Organization Society of the City of New York February 15, 1928 [East Stroudsburg, Pa., etc., Survey Associates] Prelinger Library 644–646 Arrests: +10 Deaths: Original basic wages before the strike were $6.27/dayMiners [offered] 50 cent a day wage increase; No change in workers tod'y https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271231-01 December 31, 1928 The Daily Times (Colorado)Basic wages does not include the amount workers were paid for output. The 1927–1928 Colorado coal strike was a spreading strike, spearheaded by the Industrial Workers of the World.McClurg 1963 The exact number of workers involved is unclear due to the nature of the strike. However, it shut down nearly all of Colorado's coal mines. Strike upright=1.4|thumb|1. Nick Mavroganis; 2. Frank Mendas; 3. A. S. Embree; 4. Alberto Martinez; 5. Tom Garcia; 6. Nenesio Adillo; 7. John Maes; 8. unnamed; 9. Paul A. Sidler; 10. John Mariega; 11. A. K. Payne; 12. Gumersindo Ruiz; 13. Walter Chatterbock; 14. Jose Villa. Embree figures prominently in the CF&I spies’ reports, and Sidler/Seidler was a key strike leader who'd been jailed in World War I as a suspected German spy, according to the CF&I memo. The strike has its immediate beginnings in 1927 when the IWW called for a three-day nationwide walkout to protest the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.McClurg 1963 71 While the United Mine Workers predicted the IWW's walkout would fail in Colorado, Sheriff Harry Capps of Huerfano County commented that "fully two-thirds of the miners in the [Walsenburg] district [are] members of the I.W.W."McClurg 1963 72 When the walkout occurred on August 8, 1927,1491383626 Campbell-Hale Leigh 2013 Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike out of a total 1,167 miners, 1,132 stayed off the job, and only 35 went to work.McClurg 1963 721927-08-09 SACCO STRIKE BEGINS IN COLORADO MINES; I.W.W. Says 4,000 Are Out, but Coal Operators Insist Force Is 58 Per Cent. Normal The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/08/09/archives/sacco-strike-begins-in-colorado-mines-iww-says-4000-are-out-but.html 1927-08-10 COLORADO STRIKE ENDING.; 1,500 Miners Out in Sacco Protest Are Expected Back Today. The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/08/10/archives/colorado-strike-ending-1500-miners-out-in-sacco-protest-are.html Under threat of injunction, the IWW leaders felt they'd demonstrated success, and they persuaded the miners to return to work one day early.McClurg 1963 72 Conlin wrote, "The tactical decision of the Wobblies was to give ground on this occasion to intensify organizing efforts for a statewide strike."Conlin 1981 199 Organizing proceeded apace. In one mine, the Supervisor went to work one morning and discovered "Wobbly stickers pasted on every timber and cross beam in the place."Margolis 2005 31 IWW leader Kristin Svanum met in a mass meeting with 187 delegates from 43 of the state's 125 mines to work out the miners' demands.McClurg 1963 73Myers 2005a 132 Industrial Solidarity declared, "These mass meetings [are] to be the legislative bodies of the strikers."McClurg 1963 74 The rank and file miners were given full veto power over every aspect of the pending strike. The miners elected a General Strike Committee, which had the power to appoint all other committees,McClurg 1963 74 with only miners eligible for committee membership.Conlin 1981 199 While Wobbly organizers conducted the meetings, they had no vote in the miners' decisions.McClurg 1963 74 The Wobblies were careful that the strike demands reflected only the immediate needs of the workers, rather than long range goals of the IWW.Conlin 1981 199 The perceptions expressed in the IWW Preamble coincided with the Colorado miners' personal experiences with capitalism, and also with their feelings about the United Mine Workers union which since 1914 had seemed to ignore their needs.Conlin 1981 200 All national groupings were represented on the General Strike Committee—"Mexican, Slav, Spanish, Greek, Anglo, Italian, and Negro."McClurg 1963 74 There were so many different nationalities in the coal towns of Colorado due to corporate recruitment policy. After the coal strike of 1903–04, the companies intentionally recruited replacement miners who would have social, cultural, and language barriers to overcome before they could unite with other miners to form unions.Conlin 1981 195Margolis Romero 1987 112-114 But the IWW, always the champion of the immigrant and the ethnic worker, had readily overcome such challenges as early as the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike. 'Docile' immigrant workers may have been a boon to industry, but invariably, such workers were ruthlessly exploited. In the mines, yesterday's perplexed new arrival often became today's militant unionist.Margolis Romero 1987 113 Immigrants aroused by injustice became targets. The Colorado newspapers railed against foreign workers and, alternately, an alleged foreign, or a lower class philosophy. For example, IWW leaders were called "tramps with their pants pressed."Myers 2005a 136 The Denver Morning Post criticized the strikers' spelling, their speech, their dress, their personal hygiene, and their values.Myers 2005a 136 The IWW responded by promoting international and ethnic solidarity. Organizers with Spanish surnames played a vital role. The more loudly the coal operators objected, the quicker the Wobbly message circulated.Phil Goodstein, Richard Myers, Slaughter in Serene, The Columbine Coal Strike Reader, Colorado's First Columbine Strike, and The Columbine Mine Massacre, pub. Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World, 2005, pages 110, 135-136 The IWW was careful to follow the minutiae of Colorado law related to the pending strike, in an effort to keep the focus on the miners, rather than on the IWW itself. Nonetheless, the State Industrial Commission declared the pending strike illegal.1928-03-21 BOARD URGES UNIONS IN COLORADO MINES; Collective Bargaining Is Held a Means of Averting Future Coal Strikes. I.W.W. WALKOUT REVIEWED Lack of Organization of Miners Blamed in State Industrial Report for Outbreak The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1928/03/21/archives/board-urges-unions-in-colorado-mines-collective-bargaining-is-held.html This decision angered even established labor organizations who had not supported the strike up to that point. They considered it an affront to all of organized labor in Colorado.Conlin 1981 200 right|frameless|upright=2 IWW organizers were arrested, beaten, and robbed.McClurg 1963 76-771927-10-30 THREAT OF TROOPS QUIETS I.W.W. STRIKE; More Coal Mines Close in Colorado, but Violence Ends -- Martial Law Proclamation Ready The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/10/30/archives/threat-of-troops-quiets-iww-strike-more-coal-mines-close-in.html Proclamations were passed by at least six city councils ordering the IWW to leave.Conlin 1981 200–201 IWW union halls were wrecked. Strike preparations proceeded unabated, and strike votes were held throughout the state. In Lafayette, so many people arrived at the meeting hall to endorse the pending strike that the vote was moved to the football field, and conducted under the headlights of trucks. The Denver Post estimated that 4,000 attended.McClurg 1963 76-77 Along with the coal companies, the state, and many local communities, the United Mine Workers came out publicly against the pending strike. But the strike was called in spite of the opposition, and miners walked on October 18, 1927.1927-10-19 I.W.W. Calls Out 4,000 Colorado Coal Miners; 18 Pickets Jailed as Northern Pits Close The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/10/19/archives/iww-calls-out-4000-colorado-coal-miners-18-pickets-jailed-as.html The strike then continued to spread across the state.1927-10-25 COLORADO STRIKE SPREADS.; I.W.W. Leader Sees Gains -- Officers Narrowly Avert Disorder The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/10/25/archives/colorado-strike-spreads-iww-leader-sees-gains-officers-narrowly.html After two weeks of the Wobbly-led strike, 113 Colorado coal mines had closed, and just 12 mines remained open.Richard Myers, Slaughter in Serene, The Columbine Coal Strike Reader, The Columbine Mine Massacre, pub. Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World, 2005, page 132, from a report in the Denver Morning Post, November 1, 1927, page 4 Joseph Conlin declared it the most successful strike in Colorado's history.Conlin 1981 200 The coal companies offered a non-negotiated pay increase of sixty-eight cents per day. This offer did not disrupt the strikers' motivation.Conlin 1981 200 On October 26, the Colorado Governor criticized the strike and called it illegal.1927-10-27 COLORADO GOVERNOR DENOUNCES THE I.W.W.; Warns That Picketing in Coal Strike Is Unlawful and State Will Keep Peace The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/10/27/archives/colorado-governor-denounces-the-iww-warns-that-picketing-in-coal.html With IWW guidance, the General Strike Committee instructed the miners to commit no violence.McClurg 1963 77 The strike saw auto caravans of five hundred strikers traveling in more than a hundred vehicles, touring struck communities to dispense donated food and other provisions. This not only spread the strike, it kept up the strikers' morale.McClurg 1963 79 All participants were searched by their leaders for liquor or firearms before each activity.Joanna Sampson, "Slaughter in Serene, The Columbine Coal Strike Reader, Hawk Over November," pub. Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World, 2005, page 59 Conlin quotes McClurg to observe that "Laws were broken, but selectively and with care."Conlin 1981 201 The state of Colorado banned picketing, but miners voted in mass meetings to ignore the state's ban.McClurg 1963 77 Colorado law outlawed red flags such as those long flown by the IWW, so the strikers carried American flags.Richard Myers, "Slaughter in Serene, The Columbine Coal Strike Reader," pub. Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World, 2005, page 140 and Appendix A In a further declaration of non-violent intent, the IWW admonished strikers, "If anyone is going to be killed, let it be one of our men first."McClurg 1963 77 thumb|upright=1.4|Striking workers & family marching on November 3rd. The Columbine mine, one of the larger of the few mines still working, granted a fifty cent per day pay raise. The IWW saw this as one major coal company weakening, but announced that it was not enough.McClurg 1963 79 The Wobblies organized massive marches to the Columbine, numbering from 500 to 1,200 miners plus their families. They sometimes brought a five-piece brass band, and they sang union songs, satirizing the company and the police.Phil Goodstein, "Slaughter in Serene, The Columbine Coal Strike Reader, Colorado's First Columbine Strike," pub. Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World, 2005, page 116 In one surprising episode during the strike, the IWW made an attempt to establish a workers' cooperative for striking miners at an abandoned mine. Two coal mine operators sought to demonstrate that such cooperatives were impossible, and they issued a challenge to the IWW to follow through at their facilities. However, they insisted that the IWW had to post a state-required safety bond within 24 hours, before it could reopen the mines. Since the IWW was not able to post the bond within the designated period, the experiment was not pursued.Conlin 1981 206 Entire communities became organized during the 1927 strike, and they were capable of protracted militant action.Margolis Romero 1987 126 One resident of a coal community spoke of the effect of the 1927 strike on students, You'd think the coal miner was the dirtiest reptile that walked the earth. Everybody was down on the coal miner when he went on strike ... And the teachers were against us. And they had their favorites. The scabs' boys were in there too and, of course, we had gangs just like they do today. And the teachers would side with the scabs' side. Why hells bells man, we had to do something! So we organized (Junior Wobblies) at school just to protect ourselves.Eric Margolis and Mary Romero, quoting Celeski, 1976, "The Greater Evil: The Role of Radical Unions in the End of Industrial Feudalism," Research in Social Policy, Volume 1, 1987, page 123 thumb|upright=1.4|Officers of the state militia prepare to leave for a strike area. November 7, 1927 – Steelworks Center of the West The State of Colorado and local law enforcement began to arrest every strike leader that they could identify, on vagrancy or other trumped up charges. Many were deported from the state. In Trinidad, in Walsenberg, and elsewhere, members of strikers' families stepped forward to take the place of arrested leaders, and lead the strike.Myers 2005b 161-171 Seventy-five IWW members in the Trinidad jail conducted protests that featured bonfires. Prisoners in the Lafayette jail carried on incessant singing. When they were offered their freedom, they refused to leave. A group of prisoners in Erie persuaded their jailers that deputies in Utah and Wyoming received higher pay, had better working conditions, and worked shorter hours.Myers 2005a 134–135 In Pueblo, the jail was secured by "200 deputies armed with tear bombs, machine guns, rifles, and fire engine pumpers."McClurg 1963 82 Mine Massacre Columbine Mine massacre Yes Newspapers began calling for the governor to no longer withhold the "mailed fist", to strike hard and strike swiftly,Denver Morning Post editorial, November 2, 1927, page 1 and for "Machine Guns Manned By Willing Shooters" at more of the state's coal mines.Boulder Daily Camera, November 17, 1927, page 2 Within days, on November 21, 1927, state police and mine guards fired machine guns, rifles, and pistols against 500 unarmed miners and their wives at the Columbine mine, killing six.Myers 2005a 138-139 This led to a brief cessation of picketing as strikers grieved.1927-11-23 STATE TROOPS KEEP ORDER IN COLORADO; Striking Coal Miners Are Quiet Following Monday's Fatal Clash Near Denver. SAY THEY WILE AVOID FORCE National Guardsmen Quartered in Mines -- Civil Liberties Union Here Protests to Governor Adams The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/11/23/archives/state-troops-keep-order-in-colorado-striking-coal-miners-are-quiet.html Now faced with their own massacre, the IWW's leaders kept their focus on the immediate goal: winning the strike. After the memorial services, when some angry miners talked about getting their guns, organizers counseled them with the words of Joe Hill: "don't mourn, organize!"Myers 2005a 142 On November 26, 1927, 1,000 people gathered in Union Square, calling for the end of troop use and protesting against the recent killing of strikers.1927-11-27 1,000 PROTEST KILLING OF MINERS IN COLORADO; Mass Meeting in Union Square Telegraphs Governor Adams to End Use of Troops The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1927/11/27/archives/1000-protest-killing-of-miners-in-colorado-mass-meeting-in-union.html Following the Mine Massacre public pressure led to the starting of Colorado Industrial Commission formal hearings announced on December 12, 1927. The hearings were held from December 19, 1927 – February 15, 1928.P. Marsh Douglas August 5, 2022 Colorado and the IWW, Part III https://industrialworker.org/colorado-and-the-iww-part-iii/ IWW.org Other involvements On December 27, 1927, Trinidad Mayor James G. Espey announced they would be deputizing civilians. The day after this, the deputized police force lashed out with violence against the strikers.Bayard Charles J. 1963 The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike https://www.jstor.org/stable/4492179 Pacific Historical Review 32 3 235–250 10.2307/4492179 4492179 0030-8684 subscription Walsenburg Hall Killings 400 M. Lopez, gunman, Wolsenburg, Colorado, January 12, 1928..jpg Walsenburg IWW Hall, post-raid, Walsenburg, Colorado, January 12, 1928..jpg Writing from each photographs backside are written in quotations. horizontal “State policeman on corner where killing took place a few minutes after shooting occurred. 'I’ll blow you to hell!' he told F.P. correspondent who was taking the picture and leveled his gun at him. Just as the picture snapped he lowered his gun. Crowd in the background is standing in front of the IWW Hall.” "Walsenburg hall immediately after shooting Jan. 12th 1928. Huge hole was caused by machine gun. 22 other holes in window also. The Spectator" left 5 center A gunmen, later identified as M. Lopez, standing holding a partially lowered long barrel gun looking at the camera On January 12, 1928, two more people were killed by police raiding the IWW's Walsenburg IU 210-220 hall while strikers were rallying there.P. Marsh Douglas August 5, 2022 Colorado and the IWW, Part III https://industrialworker.org/colorado-and-the-iww-part-iii/ A 15-year-old boy named Salastino Martinez and 40 year old wobbly Klementz Chavez were killed.Casey Conor Library Guides: Industrial Workers of the World Photograph Collection: Colorado Mine Strike, 1927-1928 https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=341845&p=2299872 2023-04-16 guides.lib.uw.edu en Warning, very graphic imagery present within source July 2026 InternetArchiveBot Aftermath The miners won a dollar a day increase from the 1927 strike.Conlin 1981 203 The miners in the northern field won union recognition from the second largest coal operator in Colorado.Margolis 2005 47 It was not recognition of the IWW, as it turned out. The company picked a union for the miners, and it was the United Mine Workers. Nonetheless, these were the most substantial gains the miners had ever achieved from a strike in Colorado.Conlin 1981 203 It was the only increase obtained by coal miners in the country during the period from 1928 to 1930.Conlin 1981 203 Although the United Mine Workers in Colorado had vocally opposed the strike, they had established an official position of neutrality. However, United Mine Workers agents conducted overt actions against the strikers, including participation in vigilante raids against IWW property.Conlin 1981 201 Some UMW miners scabbed on the IWW strike,Margolis 2005 28 and others became informants for the state police.Conlin 1981 201 One popular United Mine Workers official, a union organizer from the Ludlow era by the name of Mike Livoda, hired himself out to the governor to spy on the Wobblies.Margolis 2005 28 The most pervasive spying during the 1927 strike was most probably conducted by Colorado Fuel and Iron, the coal and steel company owned by the Rockefeller dynastyBayard Charles J. The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike Pacific Historical Review 1963 32 3 235–250 10.2307/4492179 4492179 "X," "XX," and "X-3": Spy Reports from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company https://www.historycolorado.org/story/2021/04/19/x-xx-and-x-3-spy-reports-colorado-fuel-iron-company-archives 2023-03-05 www.historycolorado.org The company organized a network of spies to infiltrate, propagandize against, and disrupt the IWW. Archives currently held at the Bessemer Historical Society reveal that the company used its spies and its relationship with the authorities to compile dossiers on union activists, and to obtain photographs, IWW membership lists, private union correspondence, and other union materials related to the strike. Summing up the Colorado coal strike, Joseph Conlin concludes that Colorado coal miners were radical, based upon their experiences, and willfully chose to have the IWW lead them. In Conlin's words, "[t]he failure of the Wobblies to establish and maintain a viable organization in Colorado resulted from the anarcho-syndicalist strategy of the IWW (i.e., no labor contracts, no union recognition), not from the absence of class consciousness and radicalism among the miners."Conlin 1981 210 See also Colorado Coalfield War, 1913-1914 Columbine Mine Massacre References Works cited Conlin Joseph R. Joseph R. Conlin 1981 At the Point of Production: The Local History of the IWW Greenwood Press Margolis Eric Romero Mary Stanfield John H. Research in Social Policy 1987 The Greater Evil: The Role of Radical Unions in the End of Industrial Feudalism 1 JAI Press 0892325216 Margolis Eric May Lowell A. Myers Richard Slaughter in Serene: The Columbine Coal Strike Reader 2005 Colorado's Wobbly Strike Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World 0-917124-01-4 McClurg Donald J. 1963 The Colorado Coal Strike of 1927 -- Tactical Leadership of the IWW Labor History 4 1 68–92 10.1080/00236566308583916 Myers Richard May Lowell A. Myers Richard 2005a The Columbine Mine Massacre Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World 0-917124-01-4 Myers Richard May Lowell A. Myers Richard Slaughter in Serene: The Columbine Coal Strike Reader 2005b The Women of the 'Twenties Coal Strikes Bread and Roses Workers' Cultural Center and Industrial Workers of the World 0-917124-01-4 Notes Category:Labor disputes in Colorado Category:Miners' labor disputes in the United States Category:Mining in Colorado Category:Political repression in the United States Category:Labor disputes led by the Industrial Workers of the World Category:1927 in Colorado Category:1928 in Colorado Category:1927 labor disputes and strikes Category:1928 labor disputes and strikes Category:Industrial Workers of the World in Colorado Category:1920s strikes in the United States