The Congress of Industrial Organizations launches Operation Dixie in spring 1946, the most ambitious post-World War II campaign to unionize industry in the Southern United States, particularly targeting the textile industry across 12 Southern states. A permanent Southern Organizing Committee is …
Congress of Industrial OrganizationsVan BittnerGeorge BaldanziUnited Auto WorkersUnited Electrical Workers+4 morelabor-organizingoperation-dixieciocorporate-violenceracial-politics+2 more
On May 26, 1937, at approximately 2:00 p.m., Ford Motor Company orchestrates a brutal assault on United Auto Workers organizers conducting a permitted leaflet distribution campaign at the Miller Road pedestrian overpass above Gate 4 of the massive River Rouge Plant complex in Dearborn, Michigan. UAW …
Ford Motor CompanyHarry BennettFord Service DepartmentUnited Auto WorkersWalter Reuther+3 morelabor-rightscorporate-violenceuawfordunion-busting+2 more
On January 11, 1937, Flint police and General Motors security forces launch a violent assault on UAW strikers occupying Fisher Body Plant Number 2, attacking with tear gas canisters and live ammunition in an attempt to break the 12-day sit-down strike. The “Battle of the Running …
United Auto WorkersFlint Police DepartmentGeneral Motors security forcesFisher Body Plant 2 strikersBob Travis+2 morelabor-rightspolice-violencestrikessit-down-strikesuaw+2 more
On August 25, 1921, nearly 13,000 armed coal miners began marching from Marmet, West Virginia, toward Logan County to challenge the oppressive company town system that had kept them in wage slavery for decades, triggering the largest armed uprising in the United States since the Civil War. The …
United Mine Workers of AmericaSheriff Don ChafinBaldwin-Felts Detective AgencyPresident Warren Hardinglabor-suppressionstate-violencecorporate-violencefederal-intervention
In the early morning hours of August 1, 1917, six masked men dragged IWW executive board member Frank Little from his Butte, Montana boarding house, tied him to the rear bumper of an automobile, dragged him through the streets, and hanged him from a railroad trestle. A note pinned to his body read …
Frank LittleIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW)Anaconda Copper Mining CompanyButte vigilanteslabor-suppressioncorporate-violenceiwwprogressive-eramining+1 more
At dawn on July 12, 1917, a sheriff’s posse organized by Phelps Dodge copper company rounded up approximately 1,300 striking miners, labor organizers, and bystanders in Bisbee, Arizona, loaded them into cattle cars, and deported them to the New Mexico desert without food or water. The mass …
Phelps Dodge CorporationWalter DouglasSheriff Harry WheelerIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW)Cochise County Loyalty Leaguelabor-suppressioncorporate-violenceiwwprogressive-eramining+1 more
On November 5, 1916, an armed posse of business owners and deputized vigilantes opened fire on a boatload of IWW members attempting to land at Everett, Washington’s city dock, killing at least five Wobblies and two deputies in what became known as the Everett Massacre or “Bloody …
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)Everett Commercial ClubSheriff Donald McRaeWeyerhaeuser Companylabor-suppressioncorporate-violenceiwwprogressive-eralumber-industry
John D. Rockefeller Jr. endured three days of grueling public testimony before the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, chaired by Progressive lawyer Frank Walsh, regarding the April 1914 Ludlow Massacre in which Colorado National Guard troops and private guards employed by Rockefeller’s …
John D. Rockefeller Jr.Frank WalshCommission on Industrial RelationsColorado Fuel and Iron Companylabor-rightscorporate-violencecongressional-investigationprogressive-erarockefeller
Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of approximately 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914, killing approximately 21 people, primarily …
Colorado National GuardColorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I)United Mine Workers of AmericaJohn D. Rockefeller Jr.Governor Elias M. Ammons+1 morelabor-rightscorporate-violencestate-repressionprogressive-eraworker-organizing
On March 25, 1911, a fire—likely sparked by a discarded cigarette—swept through the Triangle Waist Company factory on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building in New York City, killing 146 workers, mostly teenage Italian and Jewish immigrant girls. The victims died not from the fire …
Three hundred Pinkerton Detective Agency agents attempt to forcibly seize Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead steel mill in Pennsylvania, triggering a 14-hour armed battle with locked-out steelworkers that leaves seven workers and three Pinkertons dead, with dozens more wounded. The violent …
Andrew CarnegieHenry Clay FrickPinkerton Detective AgencyAmalgamated Association of Iron and Steel WorkersPennsylvania National Guard+1 morelabor-suppressiongilded-agehomestead-strikeprivate-securitycorporate-violence+1 more
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency operates throughout the Gilded Age as a private corporate army deployed against labor organizing, providing armed guards, infiltration agents, and strikebreaking services to employers seeking to crush unions through surveillance, espionage, and violence. …
Pinkerton National Detective AgencyAllan PinkertonCorporate employersState governmentsLabor unionsgilded-agelabor-suppressionprivate-securitycorporate-violenceunion-busting+1 more