You..ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Sunday June 14, 1903
Chicago, Illinois - Restaurant Employers will reopen on Tuesday with scabs.
In an attempt to break the cook and waiters' strike in this city, employers plan to reopen the 84 establishments now being struck with imported strikebreakers. 5,000 workers are on strike at hotel dinning-rooms and other restaurants, but employers have had agents out visiting towns within a 300-mile radius in an attempt to recruit replacement workers. Thus far 1200 scabs have been recruited and quietly brought into the city. Employers now say that they have on hand a sufficient number to break the strike, and are expecting to bring in more scabs during the next three days.
SOURCE
The New York Times
-of June 15, 1903
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Saturday June 14, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia - Testimony of Maud Estep, the widow of Francis Estep
The Striker's Orphan Child
Maud Estep was called as a witness before the Senate Investigating Committee yesterday. She was sworn in by Senator Kenyon. Mrs. Estep is the widow of Francis Estep, the striking miner who was shot down during the attack on the Holly Grove Strikers' Colony last February.
This is a summary of her testimony:
She continues to reside at Holly Grove. Before the strike she lived on Cabin Creek and Acme. Her husband died on the 7th of February of this year. Her husband was shot by gunmen from the Bull-Moose Special as it passed by their house.
Well, he was shot from the train, I suppose; the train went up there, and they were shooting from the train at the house..Between 10 and 11 o'clock, some time; I don't just exactly know what time; that was by my time.
At the time of the shooting, they were living in house across from the station, near the creek.
She describes the panic as shots were fired at the house:
He was in the house when the train commenced shooting down on the other side. We were all in the house sitting there carrying on and talking. We heard the train come shooting, and he hollered for us to go to the cellar, and he went out the front door - him and some more boys that were in there; they ran out of the front door, and I went through the kitchen way, and I never got any farther than the kitchen door; we were all trying to get to the cellar. He was standing right at the corner of the cellar near the kitchen door where I was standing hollering for me to go and get into the cellar. It was so dark that I could just see the bulk of him. It scared me so - and I had a little one in my arms - that I could not go any farther. His cousin was there on a visit, and after the train commenced shooting he took hold of me and told me not to fall, and about that time a shot struck him[the cousin] in the leg.
The cellar of the house was right off the ground. The house was elevated a few feet above the ground.
There had been a cellar under there, and it was torn down, and they were fixing it up, so if any trouble started I could go there.
She was pregnant at the time, and that baby is 2 months old now. The child that she was holding as her husband was shot will be 2 years old on the 16th of September.
The first thing we heard was shots from the train. I suppose it started from the train. It was away below our house. We live up above the first town where the station is...We heard [the train] after it commenced shooting. We had not heard it before. We had our doors closed.
She learns that her husband is dead:
I didn't know he was killed until after the train quit shooting, and I heard some of them speak to him and call his name, and I never heard him answer...[His body was] right on the outside of the house, pretty near to the back corner of the house.
She has never been back to that house since the night her husband was killed.
Her husband did have gun,but she is unsure if he was holding it when he was shot.
Her husband's last words:
The last I heard him he was hollering for me to go in and get in the cellar. Hessie Willis was in there with me, and me and her went out the back way, and he was standing there; I could just see him in the dark; I could just see the bulk of him in the dark, and he was saying: "You women get in right quick; get in the cellar."
SOURCE
Conditions in Paint Creek District. West Virginia
Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on
Education and Labor of the United States Senate, pages 460-465
Part 1
http://books.google.com/...
Poem for the Strikers Orphan Child
http://www.wvgenweb.org/...
Friday June 14, 2013
From Making Change at Walmart: Heather McGhee Supports Walmart Workers
The following is a support statement from Heather McGhee, Vice President of Demos:
Demos stands with the millions of Americans who struggle under the suffocating low-wage model that Walmart has pioneered. Walmart is the world’s largest private employer, but its inexcusable reluctance to pay its workers a living wage forces many employees to rely on taxpayer dollars to take care of their basic needs.
Demos believes that all Americans should have an equal opportunity in our economy – an idea that can only become a reality when employers like Walmart prioritize living wage standards. According to a report we released last year, Retail’s Hidden Potential: How Raising Wages Would Benefit Workers, the Industry and the Economy Overall a higher wage floor opens the door for 1.5 million Americans – including workers and the families they support – to escape the confines of poverty or near poverty, in addition to an increase in retail sales and the creation of over 100,000 new jobs.
We stand with Walmart employees as they head to Bentonville, Arkansas to combat these retaliatory tactics. Fear should not compromise the voices of workers organized for change. Walmart has the opportunity to improve the lives of thousands of its workers and change the face of corporate America by addressing the needs of these hard working employees.”
- Heather McGhee, Demos Vice President
More at:
http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/...
Coal Miner's Grave by Hazel Dickens