July 11, 1917, Bisbee Deportation

[Ptah]

The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers,
their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers
and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona and held at a local baseball park.
They were then loaded onto cattle cars and transported 200 miles (320 km) for 16 hours through
the desert without food or water. The deportees were unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico,
without money or transportation, and warned not to return to Bisbee.

Background
In 1917, the Phelps Dodge Corporation owned a number of copper and other mines in Arizona.
Mining conditions in the region were difficult, and working conditions (including mine safety, pay,
and camp living conditions) extremely poor. Discrimination against Mexican American workers
by Caucasian supervisors was routine and extensive. During the winter of 1915–6, a successful
if bitter four-month strike in the Clifton-Morenci district led to widespread discontent and
unionization among miners in the state.

<snip>

In May 1917, IWW Local 800 presented a list of demands to Phelps Dodge. They asked for
an end to physical examinations (used by the mine owners to counter theft), two workers
on each drilling machine, two men working the ore elevators, an end to blasting while men
were in the mine, an end to the bonus system, no more assignment of construction work
to miners, replacement of the sliding scale of wages with a $6.00 per day shift rate, and no
discrimination against union members. The company flatly refused all the demands.

IWW Local 800 called a strike to begin on June 26, 1917. When the strike occurred as scheduled,
not only the miners at Phelps Dodge but those at other mines also walked out. More than 3,000
miners—about 85 percent of all mine workers in Bisbee—went on strike.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_Deportation

[gopiscrap]

1. In Tacoma, Washington in the 1900's

the citizens of Tacoma drove out the Chinese because they were working for low wages.