You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Wednesday July 1, 1903
San Francisco, California - The Electrical Workers' Union No. 6 Supports the Linemen
The Electrical Workers' Union No. 6 was offered a new wage scale today of $4 a day. This an increase of 50 cents per day. However, in spite of this offer, all of the electrical workers have decided that they will remain out on strike until a settlement is reached with the linemen.
SOURCE
San Francisco Chronicle
-of July 2, 1913
See also:
Hellraisers of June 26, 1903
Tuesday July 1, 1913
From the International Socialist Review: Comrade Merrick on Betrayal in West Virginia
Local West Virginia Socialists continue to repudiate the Report of the National Socialists' Investigating Committee as a "whitewash" of Governor Hatfield and the Hatfield Agreement. In an article in the July issue of the
International Socialist Review, Comrade Fred H. Merrick condemns the Report by Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, and Adolph Germer as a betrayal of the West Virginia miners. We can print only a small section of Merrick's strongly worded denunciation here, but encourage everyone to pick up the latest edition of the
Review which has several other articles discussing this controversy.
Readers may remember that Comrade Merrick, himself, spent some time in Hatfield's Military Bastille which may account for the bitterness he expresses towards the National Committee's Report:
It will be hopelessly impossible within the narrow confines of this brief article to give the reader more than a skeleton of the real "inside" story of the great strike raging in West Virginia, which the greed of the coal operators, subserviency of political officials, especially the courts and sheriffs, brutality of heartless degenerates known as "Baldwins" or "mine guards," drum-head court maritals of the militia, duplicity of their own attorneys, misrepresentation by newspapers, treachery of mining officials of their own union and the crowning act of all, the betrayal or misrepresentation of their cause to the Socialists of America by a committee elected by the National Committee to investigate conditions in West Virginia-all have utterly failed to break.
To all the horrors which a strike of a year's duration in tents on the bleak winter mountains of "Little Switzerland" means, was added the base conduct of those labor and so-called "Socialist" parasites who today make their living as advisers of the toilers without themselves undergoing the privations incident to toil and revolution. Volumes could and undoubtedly will yet be written on this phase of the West Virginia struggle which is far more vital than the spectacular battles which have been described again and again.
It is not unfair to say that the facts merely suggested here will never find publicity through orthodox labor or Socialist press, but if the reader has his class conscious curiosity sufficiently aroused by this brief resume to thoroughly investigate the sordid tale of the betrayal of the West Virginia "red necks" as many of the officials and organizers of the U.M.W. of A. contemptuously refer to the West Virginia miners, the purpose of this story will have been accomplished. Before passing judgement on the harshness of some of the terms used in this article examine each statement of fact carefully and see if such conduct should not be described in terms calculated to arouse the militant toilers of America, whether the object be our formerly "beloved 'Gene," who seems to have fallen by the wayside, or our genial friend from Milwaukee [Victor Berger]....
SOURCE
International Socialist Review
-of July 1913, p.18
http://archive.org/...
See also:
Hellraisers of May 4, 1913
& May 22, 1913
Note: this controversy continues to be debated to this very day:
The Report
Defending the Report
Criticizing the Report
Monday July 1, 2013
From Labor Notes: Summer of Solidarity Tour to Connect the Grassroots
In a recent article Stephen Lech, president of Steelworkers Local 7-669 at the Honeywell uranium enrichment facility in Metropolis (IL), describes how his local beat back Honeywell's demands for concessions. The members of this local stood up and fought back and were shown amazing Solidarity from all around the world. Now they are hitting the road "to pay it forward and show some solidarity with our sisters and brothers who are waging amazing struggles around the country." Lech continues:
Hitting The Road
This summer, a dozen union activists and community partners are traveling coast to coast in a 17-day, 13-city road show called the Summer of Solidarity Tour. At each stop we’re working with local unions and community groups to organize actions, educational events, and cultural events to support local struggles.
We’re organizing actions against home foreclosures and school closings; in support of public transportation; and in support of contract campaigns and organizing drives. We’ve coordinated with Jobs for Justice, Fight Back Pittsburgh, People Before Banks, and organizing campaigns with the Washeros and Palermo’s workers.
Local union activists who’ve been through tough fights like our lockout will be on the tour as well....
Read entire article here:
http://www.labornotes.org/...
Preliminary Tour Schedule:
August 17—Philadelphia August 18—Pittsburgh
August 19—Detroit/Windsor, Ontario
August 20-21—Chicago, Metropolis, Illinois
August 22—Milwaukee
August 23—Minneapolis
August 24—Fargo, ND
August 26—Missoula, MT
August 28—Portland, OR
August 30—San Francisco
September 1-2—Los Angeles
On the Road Again!
On the Road Again written & performed
by Willie Nelson