You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday January 11, 1904
Denver, Colorado - Colorado Federation of Labor Holds Convention To Support Strikes
President J C Sullivan
Colorado Federation of Labor
More than 350 delegates are assembled today at the Waiters' Hall in the Club Building in Denver. This is a Convention of the Colorado Federation of Labor called in order to consider ways and means of supporting the ongoing strikes of the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers of America. These courageous striking miners are now facing unprecedented Military Despotism at the hands of Generals Bell and Chase under the orders of Governor Peabody.
J. C. Sullivan, President of the C. F. of L. opened the Convention with these words:
Friends and Fellow Citizens, I Greet You:
An industrial condition that makes necessary the assembling of labor's hosts in special convention is certainly significant, and, if the facial expressions of firm determination that are stamped on the countenances of this magnificent audience correctly reflects its feelings, there is still hope that "liberty" and "justice," though banished from this centennial state of ours, "by order of a political accident," and citizens forced to leave their homes and firesides at the bayonet point in the hands of "our" modern "Hessians," for the sole and only reason that they refuse to join forces with our "modern Tories," and say they will not sell their manhood on mammon's greedy altar nor bow the knee in cringing sycophancy to the aristocratic anarchist, though he be clothed with brief official authority.
This, my friends, is a gathering that, if each and every delegate here assembled does his full duty to his country, to his fellow man, to himself and to the posterity of mankind, this meeting will go down in the annals of history as the most important gathering that has ever been held in Colorado up to this time. But if, for any reason, you fail to do your duty, you will, by that failure, assist the modern Tories and the mine operators' hired Hessians to banish the lovers of liberty from their homes and firesides, and establish in their stead willing corporate vassals, to whom manhood is an unknown quality, to whom justice is a myth and liberty an illusion. The time is now, my friends, when not only labor's voice must be heard, but labor's hosts must act, if necessary, if justice is to be again enthroned in the fair State of Colorado.
[paragraph break added]
SOURCE
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma F Langdon
(Part I, 1st pub 1904)
NY, 1969
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
Photo: J. C. Sullvan, President CO F of L, ab/ 1904
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
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Sunday January 11, 1914
From The Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Legislators Consider Antiscreen Bill
Cleveland, Ohio, January 10-The onslaught of Ohio coal operators, with headquarters in Cleveland, on the Cuyahoga County legislative delegation, to prevent the passage of an antiscreen bill at the special session of the Legislature, met opposition to-day.
Several members of the Cuyahoga delegation did not attend the meeting with the operators, held this afternoon in the Council chamber. Local union leaders had their eyes on the legislators, every one of whom is pledged to the antiscreen bill, which provides in a word that miners must be paid for all coal mined, instead of for only a portion....
Representatives of 60 per cent of Ohio's coal fields and of about $50,000,000 invested in mines were present at this meeting. President Charles E. Maurer, of the Operators' Association, declared that the entire finding of the report of State Commission on Mining, recommending a change in the basis of payment from screen coal to mine run was predicated upon testimony given by Harry M. Taylor, of Illinois [so that the Illinois mines] could steal the Northwestern market from Ohio by injuring the quality of coal produced here.
When the session ended Charles Roy and Charles Albison of Bridgeport, Ohio, representing the United Mine Workers of America, obtained the promise of a hearing before the delegation next Saturday, when the operators agreed to be quizzed.
SOURCE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-of Jan 11, 1914
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Saturday January 11, 2014
More on the fight to be paid for all hours worked.
One would think that, in these modern times, we workers could take it for granted that employers would obey the law and pay workers for all of the hours that they are required to be on the job. Of course, sadly, this is not true.
I recently explained to a friend that when her boss requires her and her fellow workers to clock-out yet stay on the premises for sometimes an hour or two, that this is wage theft. They are fast food workers, already low paid work. And this wage theft lowers their wages and increases the hours that they must be on the job. They are told to sit in the corner booth and keep their voices down. In other words, sit down and shut up. And wait without pay until business picks up.
So I contacted a lawyer for them who agreed to take the case. But these workers are too intimidated to take on their boss. I contacted the Dept of Labor who says that a complaint must by filed be one of the workers affected. Again, these workers are too intimidated, and don't trust the system. And so the wage theft continues.
The only reason that this practice is even considered wage theft in these modern times is because Union members fought and died in earlier times for justice on the job. Readers of Hellraisers will remember that payment for "deadwork" was one of the demands in the Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-14 for which miners, their wives, and children were massacred at Ludlow. WE NEVER FORGET. We should remember the price that was paid for our right to be paid fairly. We should honor the memory of those who lost their lives in freedom's cause and always and everywhere resist being robbed of our labor.
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Angel Band-Emmylou Harris
My latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph has begun
Oh, come Angel Band come and around me stand
Oh bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home
Oh bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home
Dedicated to Pedro Valdez
who lost his wife and children
in the Ludlow Massacre:
Patria-37
Elivira-3 months
Maria-7
Eulalila-8
Rudolfo-9