The Ludlow Massacre: Colorado Coal Miners' 1914 Strike

Introduction

Today, workers in the United States take a number of things for granted, including state and federal employment laws, a 40-hour workweek, paid holidays, sick leave, vacation time, and retirement plans, among numerous others. Few Americans would be willing to work at arduous and dangerous jobs without such protections. The situation in 1914 was dramatically different, however, and American workers today can credit the courageous Colorado coal miners who took up arms to protect their families and their livelihoods during the most violent labor uprising in the nation's history. At least 25 people — including 11 of the coal miners' children — were killed in the Ludlow Massacre on April 20, 1914, and far more are believed to have died over the course of the 15-month strike. This paper describes the events that led up to the 1914 Ludlow miners' strike, what took place during the uprising, and the implications of this event for the nation's labor relations.

Labor Conditions in the Early 20th Century

The beginning of the 20th century came hard on the heels of the Gilded Age, when America's labor force increased dramatically and businesses began to consolidate into major concerns that wielded substantial political and economic clout. As the number of workers increased while the number of employers decreased, there was a growing recognition among labor that workers lacked a real voice in their employment arrangements and were at the mercy of Big Business. In this regard, Burt (2011) reports that "as more and more laborers worked for fewer and fewer companies and as individual workers in the capitalist economic system lost the ability to negotiate directly with their employer, they began to organize in the hope that in numbers they might find a voice" (p. 62).

In reality, the coal miners at Ludlow needed a very loud voice indeed, given their hazardous working conditions and meager pay arrangements. Hundreds of coal miners died each year due to working conditions; the dangers included not only cave-ins but also explosions from accumulated coal dust, which also caused black lung disease among the miners. Further, miners were paid only for the amount of coal they dug each day, and the employee who weighed the coal was assigned by the company and was believed to routinely cheat the workers. Not only were miners cheated out of fair wages in this fashion, they were also forced to dig tunnels using picks, shovels, and explosives, reinforce them with wooden bracings, and lay railroad tracks — all without pay, since these tasks did not result in the direct extraction of coal. In fact, miners could work at these tasks all week and never earn a single dollar.

In addition, miners were paid in scrip redeemable only at the company store. In many cases, miners would work an entire month and end up owing money after paying for their explosives, company rent for their meager housing, and their company store bill. Miners were also forced to live in barbed-wire-enclosed camps patrolled by company guards and to purchase their own explosives used for tunneling and coal extraction — and workers' compensation was a thing of the distant future. In other words, the situation was ripe for conflict, and that is exactly what the coal mine owners received in the spring of 1914 when the miners decided they had endured enough at the hands of their exploitative employer (Green & Jameson, 2009).

The Strike Begins: Grievances and Early Conflict

With their very survival at stake and feeling they had no other viable options, in September 1913 the coal miners joined the United Mine Workers of America and staged a walkout to demand the removal of camp guards, compliance by the mine owner with state employment laws, recognition of their newly established union charter, and better working conditions and payment arrangements. In response, the company attempted to restore order and return the miners to work using a private militia comprised of the local sheriff, camp guards, mercenaries, and detectives from the Baldwin-Felts Agency (Burt, 2011). When this intervention failed, the National Guard was deployed to reestablish order at the mine and return it to production.

Once the walkout began, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) evicted the striking miners and their families from their shacks on company land (Burt, 2011, p. 63). As a result, approximately 13,000 men, women, and children were forcibly relocated to a tent city provided by the United Mine Workers on an open field with no utilities or other resources. The miners continued to refuse to return to work and aggressively sought to prevent non-union replacements from taking their place. Moreover, 25 members of the United Mine Workers were indicted by a federal grand jury for "maintaining a monopoly of labor" and "conspiring in the restraint of trade," but no charges were filed against the mine owners or operators (Burt, 2011).

Conclusion

The research showed, and the historic record confirms, that greed can cause humans to act with inhumanity toward others, especially when those others are not in a position to resist. In the final analysis, the 1914 coal miners' strike in general, and the Ludlow Massacre in particular, made it clear that labor needed a voice and that unions could provide it. These are important issues for Americans today, who may become complacent about their rights in the workplace. Other American workers owe a great deal to the sacrifices of the miners at Ludlow, who provided the catalyst needed to force the nation to confront the harsh realities of unchecked corporate power in the early 20th century.

References

Burt, E. V. (2011). Shocking atrocities in Colorado: Newspapers' responses to the Ludlow Massacre. American Journalism, 28(3), 61–83.

Foster, J. C. (1984). Buried unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre. American Historical Review, 89(1), 229–230.

Green, J., & Jameson, E. (2009). Marking labor history on the national landscape: The restored Ludlow Memorial and its significance. International Labor & Working-Class History, 76, 6–25.

In the hot seat. (2022). History Matters. Retrieved from