Building Trades News

In July of 1851, two railroad strikers were shot and killed and dozens of others were injured protesting over their working conditions by the State Militia in New York. On Jan. 13, 1874, as unemployed workers demonstrated in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park, mounted police charged the demonstrators, which included women and children, beating them without regard with clubs and injuring hundreds.

After days of a national general strike in 1877, where workers throughout the United States were standing up for fair conditions, federal troops were directed by the city bosses to put down a demonstration of the German Furniture Workers’ Union in Chicago, where they opened fire killing 30 and wounding over 100. Called the Bay View Tragedy, May 5, 1886, Polish workers striking over and denouncing the 10-hour workday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were fired upon by State Militia that had been called into action by the Governor. The shots left eight dead, including one child, and eight died later.

Business bosses congratulated the Governor for his quick action. On Oct. 4, 1887, 35 unarmed black sugar workers were shot by the Louisiana Militia, supported by business owners, during the sugar workers strike over their demand for a dollar-a-day wage. Two of the strike leaders were hung. Near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 10, 1897, 19 unarmed coal miners were killed and 36 wounded, many shot in the back, by the County Sheriff and “volunteers,” because the miners refused to stop picketing at the Lattimer Coal Mine.

This was known as the Lattimer Massacre. In Everett, Washington, on Aug. 19, 1916, “strikebreakers” hired by the owner of Everett Mills, attacked workers on strike for better conditions. The local police refused to do anything, claiming that because the attack took place on Federal land they didn’t have jurisdiction. At a rally called by the Union on Nov. 5, “company goons” fired on the workers killing seven and wounding 50. On Apr. 14, 1930, over 100 farm workers were arrested for Union organizing activities in Imperial County, California. Eight of them were “convicted” of “criminal syndicalism.

” The General Motors Corporation recognized the United Auto Workers’ Union on Feb. 11, 1937 following a sit-down strike in Flint Michigan, that began three months earlier. Two months later, company goons beat the United Auto Workers’ leaders at the G.M. River Rouge Auto Plant. On May 30, 1937, 10 Steel Workers were killed and 30 wounded in gunfire from the Chicago Police Department. It was called the “Memorial Day Massacre.

” There is a graphic and horrific history of violence created by business barons, bosses and CIOs throughout the last three centuries in America. The accounts of attacks on workers and Union supporters by police, militia were written about daily, mostly by newspapers that were always on the side of business interest – in many cases because the “tycoons” of the world actually owned them. Sometimes it seems that nothing has changed. By now you have probably heard that, on Mar. 14, a gang of goons employed by a non-union company attacked five Union representatives who were peacefully picketing at the Newmark Development project in downtown Los Angeles.

The details of what happened aren’t as important as is the fact that a company can set their goons on Union representatives or feel that they can do it and get away with it. We have to assure them that this won’t happen without their having to feel the full consequence of their action. The Union Craft Workers throughout our area came out in force to face off with the owners of this project. Over 600 joined their brother and sister members to demonstrate against violence and demand that the City’s elected and appointed officials undertake full legal action to make sure that the project’s owners understand that we, together, are more powerful than they and we will stand-up against their unconscionable violence.

Ever since this attack, Craft Union members, Representatives and Organizers have shown up by the dozens to observe at the project. The owner, their contractors, nor their goons have had the nerve to come back to the project site. With legal actions being filed against the owner, the contractors and the goons, by the Union representatives’ attorney, their costs should exceed what they intended to make in profits by underpaying workers on the job or through their attempts at intimidating the Union representatives with violence.

All the Unions in Los Angeles and Orange Counties abhor violence - nobody wins with violence. With this case as an example, Labor will make every boss and goon understand that they will be the ultimate loser. You can help even if you can’t go to the project site, by writing a letter to the Mayor and City Council members in Los Angeles. Tell them that the City must act to clean out the nest of “rats” that are working in downtown LA. The Newmark Project is only a small example of the “greed at any cost” attitude that has infiltrated the developers there. You can contact them by addressing your letter to Mayor Villariagosa & Council Members; City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. If we don’t do it, no one will!