Ludlow Massacre site work reveals symbols lost for a century

[Omaha Steve]

United Mine Workers representative Bob Butero of Trinidad, stands at the bottom of the stairway inside the concrete-lined cellar where women and children suffocated during the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in Pueblo, Colo. (Shanna Lewis/KRCC News via AP)

By SHANNA LEWIS

PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — The Ludlow Massacre more than a century ago was one of the most violent events in U.S. labor history and a wake-up call for the nation about brutal and often deadly coal mine work.

Recent preservation efforts at the site about an hour south of Pueblo have revealed symbols hidden for around a hundred years, KRCC-FM reports.

In 1914, southern Colorado coal miners were on strike to fight for safe working conditions and fair wages. On the day after their Greek Easter celebration, bullets flew through the sprawling United Mine Workers Ludlow tent colony. To escape the violence, four women and 11 children climbed into a hole dug in the ground beneath a tent. Then company thugs torched the encampment.

“My grandmother and another woman were the only two people who walked out of that pit alive,” Mary Elaine Petrucci told KRCC in 2014. She said the others suffocated in the dirt cellar as the tent colony burned.

FULL story: https://apnews.com/article/business-colorado-pueblo-2477baf5c7860e14cb3c9708a456ee53




Ludlow Monument was erected by the United Mine Workers of America.

[mountain grammy]

1. This is so accessable off I25 in Colorado and is a wonderful monument to labor.

We've visited everytime we've driven by in that part of the state.

I highly recommend this to all travelers in our state.

[k0rs]

3. I've...

...been there as well. Very moving. Reading the history is appalling.

[momta]

8. We drive past it every time we visit my family in Texas.

We've only stopped once. When my kids were about 8 and 6 years old. I remember my daughter asking why I was crying.

[ShazamIam]

2. Hard to believe so many working class Citizens, (called middle class since the 80s) are willing

to vote to elect the anti-union Republicans.

[not fooled]

4. Working class puke voters

have little to no idea of labor history. Public schools don't teach it, undoubtedly by design. Gotta keep the future workers ignorant of how we got any rights at all.

Demonizing unions is one of the biggest and most successful cons the oligarchy has pulled on workers.

[ShazamIam]

5. Former blue collar union workers whose jobs and pensions had vanished during the mergers and

acquisition years, that left millions unemployed and unions broken, meat packers, ag workers, etc, voted for Regan and Republican governors and legislators. Many who ran on openly anti-union campaigns. Of course the Republicans had played the race, bible, guns and anti-crime hand much heavier.

[DENVERPOPS]

10. Fifteen or Twenty years ago

I witnessed an interesting thing..... As was normal, many Union contracts were expiring and being re-negotiated during those years.

I was witnessing something that completely shocked me................

Several Union's membership caved into their corporations and organizations wet dream.
The membership agreed, that as long as the corporation or organization gave them, the current workers, a small raise in pay, the membership would vote to authorizing the employers to cut the wages for any new workers to ONE HALF of the current rate was for new workers.
I was seeing the current membership, throw any new employees to the dogs, so they would get what THEY wanted......
It shocked me. Needless to say, I and many others were appalled.

I had been observing the strike lines at my local Safeway. I talked with a Union member on the strike line about this impending settlement and confirmed that that would be voted on and approved in the next few days. I questioned the worker about what the union membership before him had sacrificed by remaining on strike until management gave in to something reasonable, including his current rate of pay. He said, hey, I have to look out for myself......And instead of walking away, for the first time, I crossed the picket line in front of Safeway and went in to shop. (an acquaintance of mine at the time was earning 22 bucks an hour as a checker at Safeway. I recently asked a checker at Safeway what Journeyman Checker's were currently making. He said after ten years he was up to 14.40 an hour. He added that he was soon quitting and going to work at some menial mindless job for a starting pay of 15.30 an hour......
This wasn't an isolated incident of the Union Memberships selling out all behind them. At the same time, United Airlines flight attendants agreed to the same thing. Regional Transportation in Denver did the exact same thing with all their bus drivers..........
And, of course, you can't forget what Lorenzo did to Continental Airlines flight employees at this time...............

The Effects of the Union member's actions/decision were un-fathomable to me..........

Unions had already been getting trashed for twenty years, since Reagan and his PATCO union firings took place. After Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers, it sent a message to all Corporations and government union organizations that the Government's National Labor Relation Board would NO LONGER be on the worker's side and it was open season on any and all Union workers........I remember talking to a Journeyman Electrician here in Denver, and him telling me that on the day of the PATCO firings, he had been earning 22 bucks an hour and 26% fringe. Three days after the PATCO firings, he was told by his employer that the Denver Electrical Union workers would be earning 12 bucks an hour, and no fringe effectively immediately. Even the current union employee's contract was thrown out overnight.
The true working class, the entire middle class, had suffered a blow by Reagan and The Republican Party that they still have not recovered from..........

The Reagan administration, was actually the HWBush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/etc Administration. And with Reagan as their front man, they did an incredible amount of damage to the massive middle and lower classes during their reign..........The Republicans did the same exact thing during the WBush eight years, and capped their trashing of the middle and lower classes during the Trump administration.....
The Republican's WBush administration and Trump Administration were no different, using those two as front men, while the Republican's continued their nefarious crap in the shadows, and continuing their rape of America's middle class.

By the time Trump showed up on the scene, much of the middle class was extinct. A few people moved upwards to become lower upper class members, but the majority of what had been the middle class assumed a new place in the upper lower class without even realizing it....

Some of us Democrats became very outraged and outspoken starting in 1980 when we saw Reagan's group of Republicans, basically commit treason for years, starting with the treasonous pre election crap with Iran to guarantee the election to Reagan. Some of us Dems have been screaming from the roof tops for FORTY YEARS about what should have been blatantly obvious to all Americans. We were told we were being fanatical and crazy, especially by the so called REAGAN DEMOCRATS of that time period.........

THE perfect Title for a book covering the past forty years would be: WHILE THE NATION SLEPT........

[ShazamIam]

11. I do remember reading with disbelief that both autoworkers and USPS workers accepted contracts with

lower not higher starting wages. Shocking still after all these years.

[ShazamIam]

12. Imagine the RW response to teaching about U.S. labor history after seeing the reaction to the

great demon, fact based racial history.

[not fooled]

14. Yep, good point

same tactics. Teaching labor history would elicit cries of "socialism" or "communism." It's Pavlov's dog--all you have to do is say the "S" or "C" word and the desired response ("evil&quot is given.

And that's a big part of how we have come to be in this mess of billionaires not paying taxes while income inequality widens.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

6. An excellent book on the story of labor in general

is 'Labor's Untold Story' by Boyer and Morias. The mine workers sacrificed a lot to get working people the right to organize.
Here's a song about this event-

[keithbvadu2]

7. Powerful song. POWERFUL!

[Martin68]

9. "company thugs torched the encampment" This is the correct use of the word "thugs."

When capitalists try to reverse the meme and use it against unions, they should be called on it every time.

[appalachiablue]

13. Documentary: Ludlow, Colorado Coal Miner Strike & Massacre 1913-1914: Rocky Mountain PBS

Last edited Fri Nov 26, 2021, 05:46 PM - Edit history (2)

- Rocky Mountain PBS. A very informative film on the subject well worth watching. (2013).

One of the most significant events in the struggle for labor laws in America played out in Las Animas County in the spring of 1914. With the control of much of Colorado's coal mines in the hands of just a few companies, miners grew increasingly intolerant of low wages and dangerous working conditions.

Despite efforts to suppress union activity, the United Mine Workers of America called a strike in September of 1913. Over the next few months, tensions escalated as the striking miners ransacked several mines. The dispute ultimately culminated in a violent clash on April 20, 1914. Despite this tragic outcome, the event sparked national outrage and led the way for workers' rights in America.
______

- Ludlow was the most violent labor dispute in the US to occur after 50 years of mounting worker grievances and tension.

The conflict was brought on by brutal labor conditions and the exploitation of coal mine workers, many of whom were immigrants of different backgrounds and languages. Company towns and housing were controlled by the mine owners in every sense. Paternalism.

During the strike, miners that went on strike were evicted from their company houses and moved to Tent Colonies set up by the UMWA to provide shelter from growing harassment. People living in the tents struggled to get by during the harsh winter conditions. Labor activist Mother Jones (Mary Harris) visited the area to try to rally the miners, especially the wives.

Private detectives hired by the coal companies and mercenary soldiers were employed as well as the National Guard called in by the Colorado governor. Almost a year after the battle and bloody massacre of people in below- ground tent cellars, owner John D. Rockefeller, Jr. came to the site to try to appear to calm the crisis and chaos.



- John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Standard Oil Co./Exxon) was widely blamed for having orchestrated the Ludlow Massacre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller_Jr.



- A postcard depicting the Tent Colony at Ludlow in 1914.

[DenaliDemocrat]

15. My family was there

My great grandfather and great uncles had a bounty put on their head by Rockefeller for helping the miners. Yet they say he was a “great” man.

And miners weren’t paid “low wages”, they BBC were paid in scrip - currency only good at Rockefeller’s store. They paid rent to live in company housing. They were enslaved.

Rockefeller also had 4 women and 9 children burned alive. The militia caught a young boy, tied him to a wagon, road around and tortured him - cutting off some fingers hoping his wails would intimidate the miners.