Mining

Phelps Dodge Breaks Copper Strike Using Permanent Replacement Workers, Destroying Union

| Importance: 8/10

Over 2,000 copper miners strike against Phelps Dodge Corporation at its Morenci, Ajo, Douglas, and Bisbee operations in Arizona and El Paso refinery in Texas, seeking to maintain wages and benefits amid the company’s demand for concessions. Following Reagan’s PATCO precedent, Phelps …

Phelps Dodge Corporation United Steelworkers Arizona miners National Labor Relations Board labor-suppression strike-breaking permanent-replacement union-busting mining +1 more
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Frank Little Lynched: IWW Executive Board Member Murdered by Vigilantes in Butte

| Importance: 7/10

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 Little Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Anaconda Copper Mining Company Butte vigilantes labor-suppression corporate-violence iww progressive-era mining +1 more
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Bisbee Deportation: Phelps Dodge and Vigilantes Illegally Deport 1,300 Striking Miners

| Importance: 8/10

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 Corporation Walter Douglas Sheriff Harry Wheeler Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Cochise County Loyalty League labor-suppression corporate-violence iww progressive-era mining +1 more
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Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Mine War: West Virginia Declares Martial Law, Mother Jones Imprisoned

| Importance: 7/10

On April 18, 1912, approximately 7,500 coal miners in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek districts of West Virginia went on strike against abysmal conditions in company-owned towns, initiating fifteen months of armed conflict that would see the declaration of martial law, the imprisonment of …

United Mine Workers of America Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) Governor William Glasscock Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency West Virginia coal operators labor-suppression mining progressive-era martial-law company-towns
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