Western Federation of Miners famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?"

The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mine fields of the western United States. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers in the Western Rocky Mountains states brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. It also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, but left the group several years later. Image File history File links Western_Federation_of_Miners-Is_Colorado_in_America. ... Image File history File links Western_Federation_of_Miners-Is_Colorado_in_America. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... The El Chino Mine located near Silver City, New Mexico is an open-pit copper mine This article is about mineral extraction. ... White Goat Wilderness Area, Alberta, Canada The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a broad mountain range in western North America. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It contends that all workers should be united within a single union as a class and the wage system abolished. ...

It changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal and helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1935. It was later expelled from the CIO during the post-war red scare in 1950 for refusing to shed its communist leadership. After fighting off efforts by the United Steelworkers of America to raid its membership for years it eventually merged with it in 1967. 1916 (MCMXVI) is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: New Deal The New Deal is the name given to the series of programs used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt with the goal of stabilizing, reforming and stimulating the United States economy in the Great Depression. ... The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, was a federation of unions that organized industrial workers in the United States and Canada in the 1930s through the 1950s. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The United Steel Workers of America (USWA) claims over 1. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Founding and early history

The WFM was created in 1893 by the merger of several miners' unions representing copper miners from Butte, Montana, silver and lead miners from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, gold miners from Colorado and hard rock miners from South Dakota, and Utah. The miners who formed the union had already experienced a number of hard-fought battles with mine owners and governmental authorities: in the Coeur d'Alene strike in 1892, after company guards shot five strikers to death, the miners disarmed the guards and marched more than a hundred strikebreakers out of town. In response Governor N.B. Willey asked for federal troops to restore order; President Harrison sent General J.M. Schofield, who declared martial law, arrested 600 strikers and then held them without the right to trial, bail or notice of the charges against them in a stockade prison. Schofield went on to order local mine owners to discharge any union members they had rehired. 1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Butte, Montana Butte is a city that is located in Silver Bow County, Montana and is the county seat. ... Coeur dAlene is a city located in Kootenai County, Idaho. ... Official language(s) English Capital Denver Largest city Denver Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 8th 269,837 km² 451 km 612 km 0. ... Official language(s) English Capital Pierre Largest city Sioux Falls Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 17th 199,905 km² 340 km 610 km 1. ... Official language(s) English Capital Salt Lake City Largest city Salt Lake City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 13th 219,887 km² 435 km 565 km 3. ... 1892 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the United States (1889-1893). ...

This level of violence continued in later strikes. At Cripple Creek, Colorado, after mine owners increased the working day from eight hours to ten, miners dynamited mine buildings and equipment. Further violence was averted by the owners' agreement to return to the eight hour day and improve miners' pay to three dollars a day – the standard that the union fought for across the west from that point forward. That success enabled the WFM to expand dramatically over the next decade, to the point where it had over two hundred locals in thirteen states. Cripple Creek, is a city in Teller County, Colorado; it is the county seat. ...

Organizing the industry

The WFM affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in 1896, but withdrew the following year. It attempted to create its own alternative to the AFL, the Western Labor Union, which would begin organizing all workers in the West by organizing the smelter workers who handled the ore that the WFM's members mined. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. ... 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

That plan to organize the mill workers led to even fiercer battles with the refinery companies, who paid their workers half what miners earned for a ten to twelve hour day. When smelter workers went on strike in Colorado City, Colorado in 1903 it appeared that they might be able to win their demands without a serious fight, since the Cripple Creek miners were striking in sympathy with their demands. However, when one of the smelter operators refused to accept the deal brokered by the Governor of Colorado, James Hamilton Peabody, the Governor called in federal troops. Downtown Colorado Springs skyline. ... 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... A sympathy strike is a labour strike that is initiated by workers in one industry and supported by workers in a separate but related industry. ... James Hamilton Peabody was Governor of Colorado from 1903 to 1905. ...

Peabody was a fierce opponent of unions and of any social legislation that limited businesses' right to run their own affairs as they saw fit. The crucial issue in Colorado was the eight hour day. When the Legislature had enacted a statute limiting the workday in hazardous industries, such as mining and smelting, to eight hours, the Colorado Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. The voters of Colorado then passed a constitutional amendment authorizing the eight hour day, but the smelter owners and Republican Party fought any efforts to pass a new statute implementing the amendment, while Peabody declared that he would undo it "if it requires the entire power of the State and the Nation to do it". Eight-hour day banner, Melbourne, 1856 The Eight-hour day movement, also known as the Short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. ... The Republican Party, often called the GOP (for Grand Old Party, although one early citation described it as the Gallant Old Party) [1], is one of the two major political parties in the United States. ...

That power took the form of Colorado's National Guard, whose salaries were paid by the business community, not the State. Their commanding officer, General Sherman Bell, began arresting union leaders, strikers, and local public officials by the hundreds. Bell prohibited local newspapers from printing any material unfavorable to the military and ordered the arrest of the entire staff of a newspaper whose editorial had offended him. In Bell's words, "Military necessity recognizes no laws, either civil or social". When a lawyer for the union sought to free the prisoners on a writ of habeas corpus, Bell responded "Habeas corpus, be damned! We'll give 'em post mortems!" Seal of the National Guard Bureau Seal of the Army National Guard Seal of the Air National Guard // Background The United States National Guard is a significant component of the United States armed forces military reserve. ...

The violence on both sides only intensified. After a mine explosion on November 21, 1903 killed a superintendent and foreman, Bell announced a vagrancy order that required all strikers to return to work or be deported from the district. When a bomb exploded at a train station in Independence, Colorado on June 6, 1904, killing thirteen strikebreakers, employer militias and vigilantes destroyed every union hall in the area, while General Bell deported hundreds of strikers. Although the courts eventually acquitted all union members charged with the bombing of the station and awarded damages to those who had been deported, the strike and the union were broken in Cripple Creek; similar measures in Telluride, Colorado effectively drove the WFM out of the state. November 21 is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining. ... 1904 (MCMIV) is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Old Town Telluride Telluride is a town located in San Miguel County in southwestern Colorado on the San Miguel River on the west side of the San Juan Mountains. ...

Founding the IWW

The WFM's defeat led the union to look for allies in the battle, which it was not prepared to concede, with employers in the Rockies. The Western Labor Union had renamed itself the American Labor Union in 1902. The WFM now sought to join with other advocates of industrial unionism and socialism to found a national union federation, the Industrial Workers of the World, in 1905. 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union -- regardless of skill or trade -- thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations. ... Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that society should exist in which certain not-for-profit popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It contends that all workers should be united within a single union as a class and the wage system abolished. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

The WFM had adopted a socialist program in 1901. "Big Bill" Haywood, who joined the union as a silver miner in Idaho, put the union's objections to capitalism in the simplest terms: he took the side of workers against the mine owners who "do not find the gold, they do not mine the gold, they do not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belongs to them". 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... William Dudley Big Bill Haywood (February 4, 1869–May 18, 1928) was a prominent figure in American radical unionism as a leader in the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and later as a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). ... Official language(s) English Capital Boise Largest city Boise Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 14th 216,632 km² 491 km 771 km 0. ... In common usage, the word capitalism means an economic system in which the means of production are primarily privately owned and operated for profit, with private investment of capital, and where production, distribution, and the prices of goods, services, and labor are affected by the forces of supply and demand...

Haywood was the first chairman of the IWW; he defined its work as "socialism with its working clothes on". But factional differences the following year between the "revolutionists" and "reformists" within the IWW, which also divided the leadership of the WFM, led to the departure of the WFM from the IWW in 1907. The WFM rejoined the AFL in 1911. 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ...

Trial of Haywood, Pettibone and Moyer

When Frank Steunenberg, a former governor of Idaho, was murdered on December 30, 1905, the authorities arrested Charles Moyer, president of the union, Bill Haywood, its secretary, and George Pettibone, a former member, in Colorado and put them on trial for Steunenberg's murder. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Harry Orchard, who claimed that the union had directed him to plant the bombs that killed supervisors and strikebreakers during the second Cripple Creek strike and that Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone had hired him to assassinate Governor Steunenberg. Frank Steunenberg (August 8, 1861–December 30, 1905) was the governor of the U.S. state of Idaho from 1897 until 1901. ... Official language(s) English Capital Boise Largest city Boise Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 14th 216,632 km² 491 km 771 km 0. ... December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... William Dudley Big Bill Haywood (February 4, 1869–May 18, 1928) was a prominent figure in American radical unionism as a leader in the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and later as a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). ... Harry Orchard was born Albert Horsley in 1867 in Ontario, Canada. ...

The prosecution had depended heavily on the investigative work of James McParland, who had helped convict the Molly Maguires as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency three decades earlier, and felt confident that it would convict all three. The defense hired Clarence Darrow, the most renowned lawyer of the day, who had represented Eugene V. Debs several years earlier. After a two and a half month trial the jury acquitted all three defendants. In a separate prosecution, Orchard received life imprisonment and died in prison in 1954. Location of the counties of the Molly Maguires, in northeaastern Pennsylvania The Molly Maguires were a clandestine society of Irish miners who were engaged in a violent confrontation against the anthracite, or hard coal mining companies in the 19th century. ... The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was a security guard agency established in the United States in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton. ... Clarence Seward Darrow ca. ... Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American labor and political leader and five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for President of the United States. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Mine Mill

The failure of later strikes and the depression of 1914 brought about a sharp decline in the WFM's membership. In 1916 the union changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. The union was largely ineffective, riddled with members who passed information on to their employers, and unable to win substantial gains for its members for most of the next two decades. 1914 (MCMXIV) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ...

Things changed, however, in 1934 when miners and smeltermen revitalized the union. Returning to its militant roots, the union obtained spread throughout the west from its base in Butte, and then into the South and Canada. The union was one of the original members of the Committee for Industrial Organizing, which later transformed itself into the Congress of Industrial Organizations. 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The union also returned to its radical political traditions as well, as members of the Communist Party USA came to hold the presidency of the union in the late 1940s. That, however, also sparked further disagreements over leadership and expenditures and, as the postwar red scare picked up momentum, prompted raids by the United Steelworkers of America, the United Auto Workers and other unions, particularly in mining in the South, where the CIO encouraged predominantly white miners' locals to defect. The CIO formally expelled it in 1950 after it refused to remove its left leaders. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ... // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... This article contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... The United Steel Workers of America (USWA) claims over 1. ... The United Auto Workers (UAW), officially the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America International Union, is one of the largest labor unions in North America, with more than 700,000 members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico organized into approximately 950 union locals. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The union soldiered on for another seventeen years, finding itself increasingly outmatched in its battles with employers. While it defeated all of the Steelworkers' efforts to replace it in its western strongholds in the 1950s, it had a harder time holding on to its outposts in the South. In addition, more conservative members, uneasy with the union's foreign policy and with the increasing number of African-American and Mexican-American unionists, tried to take their locals out of the union, opening up fissures that weakened the union's strikes against the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1954 and 1959. The union eventually merged with the Steelworkers in 1967 after losing locals to it in Butte and Canada. Many of its former Canadian locals eventually affiliated with the Canadian Auto Workers. An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... The ethnonym Mexican American describes United States citizens of Mexican ancestry (14 million in 2003) and Mexican citizens who reside in the US (10 million in 2003). ... The Anaconda Copper Mine was a large copper mine in Butte. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Canadian Auto Workers Logo The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) (properly the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada) is one of Canadas largest and highest profile trade unions. ...

Salt of the Earth

The 1954 movie Salt of the Earth, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, a member of the Hollywood Ten, portrays a year and a half long strike by New Mexico zinc miners who belonged to Mine, Mill; many of the actors were rank-and-file members of that union. The producers found it difficult, however, to recruit Anglo actors to play strikebreakers or deputy sheriffs; those who disliked the union wanted nothing to do with it, while those who sympathized did not want to be seen switching sides, even as actors. 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ... Herbert J. Biberman (1900 - 1971) was a US movie director. ... The Hollywood Ten was a group of American screenwriters, actors, and directors, alleged members of the Communist Party, who were convicted of contempt of Congress during the height of the Red Scare. ... Official language(s) English and Spanish Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 5th 315,194 km² 550 km 595 km 0. ... General Name, Symbol, Number zinc, Zn, 30 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 12, 4, d Appearance bluish pale gray Atomic mass 65. ...

The movie's star, Rosaura Revueltas, was deported during the shooting of the film, requiring the producers to use a double in some scenes and to shoot others and record her narration in Mexico. The home of one of the union members/actors and the union hall were burned down shortly after the end of shooting. Clifford Jencks, the Mine, Mill organizer depicted in the film, was shortly thereafter convicted of falsely stating that he was not a communist on the affidavit required of all union representatives under the Taft-Hartley Act; his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657 (1957). Rosaura Revueltas (ca. ... The Taft-Hartley Act severely restricted the activities and power of labor unions in the United States. ...

The producers were unable to find a post-production house in Hollywood willing to process the film or skilled editors willing to work on it, other than under pseudonyms or at night. The film was shown at only a few theaters; most theaters rejected it, including some that had originally agreed to show it, and union projectionists refused to show it at some of those that had accepted it. ...

See also

• Vincent Saint John
• Industrial Workers of the World

Vincent Saint John (1876 – 1929) was an American Labor leader. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It contends that all workers should be united within a single union as a class and the wage system abolished. ...

External sources

• "Instead of Fighting the Common Enemy": Mine Mill versus the Steelworkers in Montana, 1950-1967 by Laurie Mercier

Further reading

The WFM

• "The Labor Wars, From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns" by Sidney Lens ISBN 0385005008

• "Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets off a Struggle for the Soul of America" by J. Anthony Lukas ISBN 0684846179.

Mine Mill

• "Salt of the Earth" screenplay by Michael Wilson, commentary by Deborah Rosenfelt ISBN 0912670452

• "The CIO 1935-1955" by Robert H. Zieger ISBN 0807821829