Today in Labor History

September 10  --  Union Communications Services, Inc.

From Blackjacks to Briefcases is the first book to document the systematic and extensive use by American corporations of professional unionbusters, an ugly profession that surfaced after the Civil War and has grown bolder and more sophisticated with the passage of time. Since the 1980s, hundreds of firms—including the Detroit News, Caterpillar and Pittston Coal, to name but three—have paid out millions of dollars to hired thugs. Some have been in uniforms and carried nightsticks and guns, others have worn three-piece suits and carried attaché cases, but all had one simple mission: to break the backs of workers struggling for decency and fair treatment on the job.)

Lattimer Massacre

 
The anthracite miners of northeastern Pennsylvania were early members of the UMWA. In 1897, anthracite miners were faced with low wages, poor working conditions and sporadic work. The miners struck to improve these conditions, but poor coal market conditions led coal operators to harden their opposition to the miners' demands. The companies decided on a show of force by their own company police and by the cooperative sheriff of Luzerne County, James Martin. On Labor Day, thousands of non-union miners who were UMWA supporters marched peacefully in the anthracite mining towns. In the following days more marches occurred. Anxious to avoid violence, the UMWA leaders urged marchers not to carry even walking sticks, though American flags abounded.

On September 10, the strikers marched to Lattimer and were stopped by a force led by Sheriff Martin. The unexpected halt led to confusion and jostling, and shots suddenly rang out. Although the violence was committed by the so-called forces of law and was needless the sheriff had dispersed larger, rowdier crowds alone in previous confrontations no one was convicted for the murders at Lattimer.
The primary result of the massacre was rapid growth in unionism in the anthracite region. During the next four months approximately 15,000 new names were added to the UMWA rolls.
 

In 1972, Pennsylvania erected a monument to the massacre which reads:
It was not a battle because they were not aggressive,
nor were they defensive because they had no weapons
of any kind and were simply shot down like so many
worthless objects, each of the licensed life-takers
trying to outdo the others in butchery.
http://www.umwa.org/index.php?q=content%2Flattimer-massacre
VIDEO - Lattimer Massacre by Van Wagner
http://youtu.be/ncLPGSMhqKI