Snatched from the Jaws of Victory?
Staley Workers End Lockout
by C.J. Hawking

THREE DAYS BEFORE Christmas, 1995, there was a tragic blow to the labor movement. The locked-out Staley workers of Decatur, Illinois brought their more than three-year battle against the multinational conglomerate, Staley/Tate and Lyle, to a close; 56% of United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) Local 7837's membership voted to accept the company's latest contract.

Art Dhermy, one of the union's leaders in the labor battle that caught the attention of supporters from coast to coast, went to the picket lines that evening to tell the picketers to go home. Some left their picket stations in tears of disbelief.

The contract virtually eliminates safety, seniority, and the grievance procedure and demands the harsh conditions of twelve-hour rotating shifts every thirty days. The same contract, offered by the company in October 1992, had been rejected by 96% of the membership. Members also voted down by 56%, in July 1995, a similar contract which demanded twelve-hour rotating shifts every six days.

Ironically, it appears that a workers' victory was close at hand.

The Failure of National Labor

Comparisons between the Decatur Staley workers and the Austin, Minnesota P-9-Hormel fight of the 1980's have led many observers to believe that the Staley workers' battle was the labor fight of this decade. Four months after going on strike, 56% of the Hormel workers voted to keep fighting; after two years of untold hardship, 56% of the Staley workers heroically voted to keep fighting and thirty months passed before the surrender crowd caught a majority.

Some observers may ask, "Why did the Staley workers surrender?" The real question is "How were they able to last so long?" With pride, several Staley workers point to the fact that 44% were still willing to wage the battle, even after thirty months of enormous adversity.

When locked-out UPIU Local 7837 member Dan Lane ended his sixty-five day hunger strike in early November 1995, John Sweeney, the newly-elected president of the AFL-CIO, promised forty staff members, a dozen of whom would be full- time, to escalate the national campaign against Pepsi.

Pepsi, which accounts for 30% of Staley's corn sweetener sales, was feeling the pressure as tens of thousands of callers from across the country complained about Pepsi's ties to Staley. Sweeney vowed to make the Pepsi campaign the number one priority of his new office.

But the United Paperworkers International Union insisted that they were in control of the campaign. Sweeney, reluctant to buck an International president so soon after his close election, bowed to UPIU President Wayne Glenn and apparently ordered his staff to back off.

A reliable source inside Pepsi-Co sent word to the Decatur workers that Pepsi would find another supplier if Staley did not end the dispute by January 1, 1996, the expiration date of their contract with Staley. In spite of the local Bargaining Committee and Executive Board's vote (12-1) NOT to send the contract back to the membership, which had already rejected it twice, the UPIU International forced the vote.

Glenn wrote to Local 7837 president Dave Watts that he was exercising his power as the International head to overrule the local leadership. Moreover, Glenn's assistant went on a Decatur radio talk-show promoting the contract, stating he would "hate to even think" about the contract being rejected. The International blatantly undermined the local union leadership, while stating its position was "neutral" on the contract vote.

The UPIU International was quick to cite the $2 million in picket pay provided to the local as a sign of its loyalty. It has also been quick to take credit for the successful campaign to pressure Miller beer to stop buying Staley product. The International in fact did virtually nothing on the Miller campaign. When Miller dropped Staley in November 1994, the victory was the result of tireless efforts by the Decatur local spreading its message against Miller across the country.

The efforts of the UPIU International on the Pepsi campaign were mediocre at best, relying heavily on the solidarity committees already established by the local. Twice it thwarted efforts for effective demonstrations at the Pepsi headquarters in Purchase, New York. Consistently, it cautioned workers and supporters in actions against Pepsi, in fear it would be sued for promoting secondary boycotts.

As of this writing, the UPIU International is attempting to reconstruct the mailing list used by the local for its last issue of "The War Zone Newsletter", in which workers wrote of the International's sellout and lackluster performance. Furious over the "Corporate Greed and Wimpy Labor Leaders Team Up" headline and articles, the UPIU apparently plans to issue its own damage-control version.

Local Hardship

Back in Decatur, a split in the union became more pronounced when in early December, 1995 Jim Shinall became the Local president-elect, unseating Dave Watts who served as president throughout the in-plant strategy and lockout. Shinall did not take office until January, when he was joined by his supporters (who now control a majority on the Bargaining Committee but not the Executive Board).

In addition to the International's sell-out and blatant undermining of the local's campaign, sustained internal organizing within the local became problematic. The local became splintered as demands for national organizing grew. Even as the local's activists were invigorated by the support of unionists across the country and the success of the Miller campaign, attention to the less militant members waned.

Shinall and his supporters took advantage of the militants being on the road by going to the picket lines and organizing disgruntled workers into surrendering. Preaching surrender, hefty severance packages, enhanced pensions, and flagrant lies about Road Warriors stealing money, Shinall found a tired and demoralized audience.

The Betrayal

Shinall's ticket ran on a promise "to end this within one week of taking office." Shinall publicly stated several times that he had no intention himself of returning to the plant. He simply wanted his severance and retirement package, regardless of the conditions for those who were younger and still needed to work in the plant.

At the beginning of the lockout, Shinall was Chairperson of the Bargaining Committee. When the lockout reached its fifteenth month, Shinall resigned, opting to take a job as a truck driver with a firm which crossed his union's picket lines.

The Decatur local media played a decisive role in Jim Shinall's election. The "Herald and Review" ran an extensive front-page story the Sunday before the election, citing Shinall as a new leader who could end the lockout. The day before the election, the paper predicted his victory, as did one local TV station. This may have contributed to only a 75% turnout, as compared to the 99% turnout in the July 1995 contract rejection vote.

There is little doubt about Shinall's close ties with Staley. While chairing the Bargaining Committee, he had frequent clandestine contact with company officials. Once he even secretly brought management to an apartment rented by the union (to house out-of-town strategists) to hold illegal, back-door negotiations.

The day after Shinall's election, the company announced its new contract offer. The company sweetened the severance, offering workers with over twenty years in the plant a $30,000 severance. The company, however, was deceptive about the pension plan, which Shinall also endorsed.

After ratifying the contract, many of Shinall's supporters realized they'd been deceived and reportedly made threats against him. Staley responded by sending company security to Shinall's house, just as they have done for corporate executives throughout the lockout.

The day after Shinall was sworn in to his presidency, he appeared at the Campaign for Justice Office, the space rented by the union for coordinating solidarity efforts. Shinall, with a locksmith in tow, ordered those present to leave and had the locks changed.

The following week Shinall called police to the union hall and ordered them to remove the severed members who "no longer had a vote or a voice." A unanimous motion had already been passed to allow severed members to stay, much to Shinall's chagrin. Severed members refused to leave: "We've been locked-out of our plant, locked-out of our campaign office, and now we're not going to be locked-out of our own union hall!" they declared.

UPIU Regional Director Wirges immediately declared the meeting adjourned. While the 11 police cars waiting outside the union hall meant the police were geared for mass arrests, the rage and militancy of the hundreds of UPIU workers instead led the cops to escort Shinall home.

With the International acting on behalf of Shinall in negotiating with the company, Staley is allowing Shinall to retire in April, a special exception which qualifies him to stay on as president. (Workers will complete the transition of returning to the plant by March.)

The Decatur Climate

Many of the Staley workers have already witnessed the destruction of collective bargaining rights as their brothers and sisters at the Decatur Caterpillar plant returned to work in defeat. Workers have been fired without warning for having aged union logos on their lunch boxes. Nationally, over 100 Cat workers have been fired or indefinitely suspended without benefit of a grievance procedure, and thirteen Caterpillar union members have committed suicide, including the president of the Denver local.

The United Steel Workers have had less than half of their members recalled to the Decatur Firestone/Bridgestone plant since May 1995, when they ended their ten-month strike. They have found their twelve-hour shifts to be unbearable, threatening health and family life.

During the month of December, five people were killed at corn processing plants similar to Staley: three at Decatur's Archer Daniels Midland plant and two at ADM's Iowa plant. In January, four Decatur workers were rushed to the hospital in critical condition after an explosion in the plant. ADM, which owns 7% of Staley's stock, has already gutted its union.

In place of a skilled union force, ADM hired non-union contractors with little or no experience and training and unleashed them into its dangerous chemical plant. When the accidents and deaths occurred, ADM owner Duane Andreas claimed no responsibility as the workers were "from another company."

The morale in the industrial plants in Decatur could easily prompt Bruce Springsteen to release another album of dirges about the Tom Joads of Decatur. Many workers, relentlessly forced back into brutal working conditions with little direction and support from their Internationals and the AFL- CIO, felt a fire in their gut to rebel against inhumane treatment, but have been denied support from their leadership.

The Long Way Back

The locked-out Staley workers were given two weeks to decide about severing or returning to the plant. For the seven workers who were unjustly fired for union activity during the in-plant strategy, there was no amnesty. Of the 760 locked-out workers, only 181 will return to the plant.

Most of those returning are in their late 40's and early 50's - too young to retire, too "old" to be hired elsewhere and accumulate a decent pension. After undergoing drug and alcohol testing and a week of "orientation" during which supervisors have already predicted there will be firings, workers will be "trained" by scabs for four months. The contract's unlimited subcontracting, twelve-hour rotating shifts, loss of seniority, grievance and safety conditions snuffed out fifty years of collective bargaining.

Many returning do so in fear. They fear being falsely accused of stealing, cursing at a scab, etc. and then being unjustly fired by supervisors who are aware of their union activities during the lockout. They fear lack of protection from the union and its new "leadership." They fear for their very lives. Spouses and children kiss them good-bye as they leave for work each day and live with the fear of not knowing if their loved one will return home safely.

Sparking A National Shift

Although the surrender by the 56% majority of Staley workers is a major and tragic defeat, their fight will have a lasting impact with significant lessons for the future. Not only did they educate and inspire unionists across the globe, their battle changed the leadership within the AFL- CIO.

In February, 1995 seventy union members from Decatur went to Bal Harbor, Florida to confront the AFL-CIO leadership at their annual meeting. The "New York Times" carried this front-page story as the red-t-shirted unionists questioned AFL-CIO officials in the hallways on their way to meetings. The question was posed with urgency: "What are you doing about the union people in Decatur?"

For the first time in history an AFL-CIO President, Lane Kirkland, stepped down from his position shortly thereafter. Several Washington insiders have revealed that Kirkland could not withstand the pressure brought to bear by the Staley workers and their nationwide network of supporters.

In the subsequent October election, Kirkland's appointed successor Tom Donahue was defeated by John Sweeney, who ran on a vow that "I'd rather block bridges than build bridges," referring to the futility of labor-management cooperation and the need for "a new voice" from labor. The newly elected Sweeney invited locked-out Staley worker Dan Lane, who was fifty-seven days into his hunger strike, to address the convention delegates, marking a rare moment indeed that a rank-and-file member addressed the AFL-CIO assembly.

Strength of In-plant Campaign

When Staley first imposed a contract with twelve-hour rotating shifts, loss of seniority and grievance procedures in October 1992, the workers brought in Jerry Tucker of UAW New Directions. Tucker skillfully educated and organized the workers into an in-plant strategy campaign known as "work-to-rule."

Rather than bring their wealth of experience and skill to the job, workers would wait for supervisors' instructions and only do as they were told. The supervisors were ignorant of the nuances of each job and subsequently production was cut by one-third.

Tucker built the successful work-to-rule campaign by meeting with individual departments. Tucker's strategy was to rely on workers' creativity and give them a sense of their own power and unity. The cohesiveness created by this strategy culminated when virtually all workers walked off the job in late June, 1993 over dangerous conditions in the plant.

The company locked out the workers one week later at 3 am on Sunday, June 27, 1993. Three weeks after the lockout the company claimed the union "sabotaged" the plant, but never produced any proof of the charges. Ironically, being locked out rather than on strike served the Staley workers' solidarity. Whereas Firestone and CAT workers suffered from union members crossing the picket lines (although for Decatur CAT workers, crossing was minimal), no such option existed for Staley workers.

The solidarity built among the Staley workers in the in-plant campaign became the foundation for them to organize outside the plant. From their experience in the plant, they knew of their best rank-and-file leaders. They knew the extent of each other's creativity, capabilities and commitment, and had a strong sense of shared power. Once locked out, they were able to mobilize skillfully as they quickly spread out to build a national network of supporters.

Building National Solidarity

Close to 100 people attended the founding meeting of the Chicago Staley Workers Solidarity Committee just three short weeks into the lockout. The local welcomed these supporters, union and non-union alike. Solidarity committees were formed shortly thereafter in other key cities. As the local designed its strategy, key leaders from Chicago and other cities were invited to participate and advise. When Local 7837 Road Warriors made return trips to their assigned cities, they disseminated information to and from the solidarity groups, forming strong networks of activists within several major cities.

Solidarity committees were then able to mobilize hundreds of people to Decatur rallies and to pressure Miller and Pepsi. Soon committees were holding their own local rallies in support of the Staley workers. The local welcomed unpaid, full-time organizers from Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago into the Campaign For Justice Office, further strengthening the ties to the solidarity committees.

In contrast, when the unions from Decatur's Caterpillar and Firestone plants went out on strike in June and July 1994, the UAW and United Rubber Workers (URW) Internationals became fierce gatekeepers of their fights, relying on traditional strategies which discouraged involvement from outside supporters and lacked creativity. Instead, the UAW opted to hire a nationally-recognized public relations firm to design a campaign to draw support.

This top-down approach was also used in their in-plant strategy, where the International would turn the work-to- rule campaign on and off like a faucet, leaving workers baffled and disempowered. Although the UAW and URW workers faced egregious union-busting working conditions similar to the Staley workers, the Internationals halted grassroots organizing that could have invigorated workers and supporters.

At the beginning of the lockout the Staley workers were in the Allied Industrial Workers International, which had a meager 40,000 members. Six months later, the AIW merged with the UPIU, with the UPIU reluctantly inheriting the militant local. One can only speculate how quickly the UPIU leadership would have brought down the local, had they been there from the beginning.

Creative Outreach

Before the lockout, the Staley workers went door-to-door in Decatur explaining the principles of the local's stance. Most Decatur residents were sympathetic and, when the lockout occurred, hundreds posted signs of support for the local on their lawns. Community outreach continued during the lockout as workers sought a meeting with local clergy and congregations. Workers were encouraged to talk to their pastors, citing the Biblical basis for the dignity of work.

Six months into the lockout, sixty Decatur pastors placed an ad in the local Sunday paper calling for the company to end the lockout. Subsequently, the company met with the pastors, but the result wasn't exactly what Staley desired: several pastors committed themselves to further strengthen their support for the local. Decatur clergy then reached out to other clergy, nationally and internationally, sparking coverage and supportive actions across the globe.

The African-American workers were organized into a caucus and first undertook building for a labor presence in the annual Decatur Martin Luther King parade. The city of Decatur, which organized and controlled the parade, told the workers that they were welcome to march but that union banners and placards were not permitted because "Dr. King had nothing to do with labor."

Outraged, the African-American workers defied the order by carrying signs and banners which attempted to liberate the ignorance of city officials. Under Black-organized leadership for the first time, scores of white union members marched, forming the largest contingent in the parade.

Three months after this event came the largest interracial parade in Decatur's history, as workers commemorated the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. After marchers carried banners proclaiming "Labor Rights Equals Civil Rights" and shouted "Black and White, United We Fight," through the streets, they streamed into Decatur's largest Black church to hear speeches from national civil rights and labor leaders.

In the same tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, fifty supporters, later to be known as the Decatur 50, staged a sit-in in Staley's driveway on June 4, 1994, blocking trucks and virtually shutting down the plant for the day.

Three weeks later, marking the first anniversary of the lockout, over 400 people crossed over the Staley property line in non-violent protest. Police sprayed the crowd with pepper gas, with the rank-and-file Staley workers in front suffering the worst of its effects.

Looking Within

The violence by Decatur police became a watershed experience for many of the workers. Prior to the pepper-gassing, the police had been viewed as an ally of the local, even contributing to the lockout fund. The police had been the cordial neighbors, friends and relatives of the local's membership. Many members were shocked by the gassing and therefore were slow to criticize the police. A year after the gassing, a class action suit against the police was filed by union leadership.

Shortly after the gassing, the company filed for an injunction, which prohibited more than ten people on the picket line. The local respected the injunction for the remainder of the fight and never again engaged in civil disobedience at the plant. A successful sit-in was staged, however, in November, 1994 at the Illinois state capitol in Springfield. Thirty-one Staley, Caterpillar and Firestone unionists were arrested for trespassing.

Had the local violated the injunction, some union officers feared they might be personally fined tens of thousands of dollars and lose their homes - with no solidarity forthcoming from the UPIU International or Lane Kirkland's AFL-CIO. Or else, many believed, the International would throw the local into trusteeship, ending the fight.

As in any union, problems of racism and sexism troubled the local and initially hampered broader support. In the fifty years of its existence, no woman or African American had ever been elected to the Executive Board.

Being only seven percent and ten percent of the membership respectively, a woman or Black candidate would need broad support from the white, male majority. Only once had an African American attempted to run for office.

During the lockout, and as a result of the Dr. King marches initiated by the African-American caucus, Jeanette Hawkins, the first African-American woman to be hired into the plant, was elected to the Bargaining Committee. Three white male candidates who supported diversifying the leadership withdrew their own candidacies and campaigned for Hawkins' election.

Prior to the King marches, only one African American had been traveling regularly with the Road Warriors. After the marches, a number of locked-out African Americans went on the road, sometimes as a Black caucus but most often with the white workers and appealing to the previously untapped support of African Americans within the labor movement.

At the beginning of the work-to-rule campaign, weekly solidarity meetings were initiated and spouses and children were invited to attend. The support from the spouses, mostly wives, cannot be understated. The wives and women workers later formed a bi-monthly support group during which the women would share the hardships of the lockout on family life.

Garnering support from other women, many wives were empowered to sustain being the main family wage-earner, and others were encouraged to enter or reenter the work force. At key rallies children were brought onto the stage and eloquently stated their convictions about the significance of the local's fight. In spite of facing ridicule or hardships in school, the children demonstrated the knowledge gleaned from their parents.

Tactical Complexities

Perhaps the local's most serious mistake was to embrace a campaign against State Farm Insurance, which Ray Rogers' Corporate Campaign zeroed in on as owning a significant percentage of ADM. State Farm was the local's target for the first year of the lockout, but the campaign never gained momentum.

Staley's connection to State Farm was obscure and difficult to explain to supporters. Additionally, one's insurance premium is built upon years of being a continuous customer; asking supporters to change insurance companies was often met with a lukewarm response. It was during this first year that the local had the greatest number of active members, many of whom became disillusioned with the lack of momentum in the State Farm campaign.

In contrast, once the Miller campaign began one year into the lockout, unionists and supporters were invigorated with an easier, reachable, and ultimately successful, campaign target. Miller boasted about being a union-made beer and its marketers were affected by a drop of just one percentage point. Moreover, Miller workers were able to join the campaign and use internal leverage.

Fight of the Decade

No other local has drawn the line and waged the fight as the Staley workers have done. Defeated, yes. And a tragic defeat it is - especially when one considers the role of the International, the newly-elected AFL-CIO leadership, and the internal division sparked by lies and fueled by personal gain. And the pain of knowing that Pepsi was soon to collapse from the pressure is almost unbearable.

Yet this one tragic defeat also holds 1,000 lessons for the next union to take a stand for the labor movement. The Staley workers should be thanked and congratulated for all they have contributed to lives of millions of present and future workers. Local 7837 members should be proud of a leadership who encouraged the rank-and-file to be creative inside the plant and to speak their minds in the union hall, and who brought in educators and supporters from the outside.

Struggle takes significant self-confidence. Local 7837 should be proud it mastered previously uncharted territory in organizing, public speaking and fundraising. It takes an immense amount of courage. Local 7837 should be proud to have educated tens of thousands of unionists across the country, who were then able to see what was taking place in their own workplace. It takes deep moral conviction to willingly fight for others.

Local 7837 should be proud of establishing Solidarity Committees across the country, groups that have already come to the aid of other workers in struggle. It takes tenacity to build a national network of activists. Local 7837 should be proud of stretching the boundaries in how its members view business, the media, government and the inter- relatedness of the three. It takes open-mindedness to broaden one's view of the world.

Local 7837 should be proud to have chipped away at racism and sexism, setting an example for other locals to do the same. It takes an openness to risk criticism and allow the fight to be for everyone.

Local 7837 should be proud of those who gave of their lives for thirty long, grueling months and left workers and labor history forever changed.

Thank you, Local 7837. We shall never forget you!

"Hotter than San Juan Hill"
by Carl Weinberg

It had been raining in Virden for days. A cold October rain. Day and night, dozens of members of the newly formed United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) patrolled the railroad tracks which led northward toward the Chicago-Virden Coal Company mine.

Joining Virden miners, a contingent of 60 miners from Mt. Olive patrolled in shifts of 40, while the other 20 freezing and exhausted men slept in the hayloft of a friendly farmer's barn. Along with miners from Springfield and smaller surrounding towns, they watched and they waited.

The miners were organizing to fight back against the intransigence of the Chicago-Virden Coal Company. Despite an agreement arrived at between the new union and coal operators statewide in January of 1898 to settle a biter six-month strike, Chicago-Virden and a handful of other companies were determined not to pay the new higher wage scale of 40 cents per ton of coal mined.

All spring and summer, the coal operators made their preparations. They recruited African-American miners from Birmingham, Alabama, promising them high wages and good conditions. In this way they sought to drive a wedge between white and Black miners. They built a stockade of four-inch oak around the mine. They hired ex-police from Chicago and private detectives from St. Louis and bought them brand new Winchester rifles. And now the train carrying strikebreakers sped north from St. Louis to the big Virden mine.

 

It was October 12, shortly after the noon hour, when the miners stationed south of the mine spied the train coming. A miner posted on lookout fired a warning signal. And soon the train, carrying strikebreakers and armed train guards, approached the stockaded mine. Miners waited, armed with hunting rifles, pistols and shotguns. As the train slowed down at the depot, a shot rang out and then the battle began in earnest, continuing as the train moved along and then stopped in front of the stockades. With the miners in an open field they took the brunt of the carnage. To a mine guard who survived, the bloodshed conjured up images of the Spanish-American War then raging in Cuba and the Philippines.It was "hotter than San Juan Hill," he recalled. After ten minutes of mayhem, having received a gunshot wound, the train engineer thought better of stopping in Virden and continued on to Springfield, his strikebreaking cargo still aboard.

The union miners paid for their militant stand: eight died, four of these from Mt. Olive, and some forty were injured. The mine guards also paid a price: four dead and five wounded. And at least one Black strikebreaker aboard the train was seriously wounded. For the UMWA, the victory was worth the cost. A month later, the company repented and granted the wage increase and Illinois became a bastion of union power in the coalfields for decades.1

 

For years afterward, area miners remembered the Battle of Virden, the deadly toll it had taken, and its importance to the building of the union. In 1918, members of the nearby Girard, Illinois local addressed an appeal to the state union office for help. Two fellow union miners from Girard, who had been shot dead at Virden in 1898, had left widows who were now penniless. In making their case for special aid, the Girard miners proclaimed the following of their fallen union brothers: "By their blood we cam into being as prosperous, powerful free men." Proudly they added that "The stockades of slaves have been removed from all mines in our state...We stand today as most respected citizens." And once again they reminded union officials that "it cost blood to gain our recognition."2

Twenty years after the victory which catapulted the UMWA to power in the Illinois coalfields, miners had to muster their rhetorical skills to ensure that the families of the Virden martyrs received their due. Today, a full century after the bloody Battle of Virden, there is an even more pressing need to explain how this intense battle cam about, who the union fighters were, what they achieved, and failed to achieved, and why the lessons of Virden are still relevant to working people today.

 

The essential prelude to the bloodshed at Virden was the great strike of 1897, which encompassed miners from West Virginia to Pennsylvania to Illinois and established the first agreements between coal operators and the UMWA. In announcing the strike, which began on July 4, UMWA national president Michael Ratchford declared that "Independence day cannot be celebrated by American slaves in a more patriotic manner than to make proclamation to the world that they will no longer submit to industrial servitude."3 In Illinois, that "industrial servitude" was experienced daily by miners and their families. To begin with, miners endured the effects of a deep economic depression, the most recent sparked by a stock market crash in 1893. As a result, employment was highly uncertain. During 1897 in Macoupin County, for instance, miners worked an average of 179 out of a possible 300 workdays. For this they earned an average $190.4 Even in relatively good times, miners lost income because of the still widespread practice of "screening" the mined coal, which cut down on the tonnage recorded. Or they lost from the practice of underweighing, which happened often in the absence of a union checkweighman (a worker who checked the weight of the coal against the company's calculations).

As if meager and uncertain wages weren't enough, coal miners worked in an extremely dangerous industry. Illinois mines generally did not build up large amounts of methane gas, but this very fact led mine workers to spend less in protecting their investment underground. The four main categories of hazards were what miners referred to as bad top, bad roads, (inside the mine), bad shots and bad air. For miners and loaders (unskilled workers who only shoveled coal and did not do skilled undercutting with a pick), by far the most common cause of injury and death was bad top or a collapsing mine roof. In 1899, for instance, Frank Stroff arrived for work at a Madison County coal mine and worked for only twenty minutes when a gigantic piece of slate fell directly on him, instantly crushing the life out of him. The year before, just fifteen days after the Virden battle, Nicholas Lacquet went to work at a St. Clair county mine and was crushed by a falling top, living only a day more, and leaving a wife and a fourteen-year-old son to forge on without him.5

Before 1897 most mining families faced the twin hazards of hunger above ground and death down below without benefit of a union. In 1892, two yeas after the UMWA was formed, the treasury of the Illinois District 12 contained the grand total of $5.40. The depression decimated the ranks of what unions did exist. On the eve of the 1897 strike, out of 35,000 Illinois coal miners in Illinois, only 400 belonged to the UMWA. Miners in DuQuoin, among other areas, were forced to sign "yellow-dog" contracts, in which miners pledged they would not join a labor organization.6 The 1890's had witnessed many defeats for workers and their efforts to organize against the greed of corporations. In 1892 workers waged a pitched battle against Pinkertons at Homestead in an effort to keep their union and such benefits as the eight-hour day. After the state militia arrived, Andrew Carnegie won that battle, and consequently workers witnessed the advent of twelve-hour days and the destruction of hard won gains. In 1894 the famous Pullman strike went down to defeat after President Cleveland called federal troops to Chicago to defeat the strikers. It was this deprivation of rights that made Ratchford's appeal to miners as slaves who sought liberty ring so true.

Despite the fact that a tiny minority of miners belonged to the union in 1897, coal diggers all over the state responded with a massive show of solidarity. Starting on July 15, in Mt. Olive, a bastion of unionism, miners undertook a grand march south through one coal town after another, calling miners out of the pits. "Gathering strength like a rolling snowball," as one reporter put it, the miners held impromptu rallies, won broad moral and material support from the communities they marched through, and often collapsed in a heap at the end of the day. In many towns, local merchants offered free food and drink and town officials offered city facilities for miners to meet and sleep. Women in coal mining families played an important part in their success. A Glen Carbon woman gave the strikers all the food in her house. She then brewed a large pot of coffee and came "trudging though the weeds with her little girl following behind with a basketful of teacups." "do you want some coffee," she asked. "O, no mam!" they joked, "we don't want any coffee," as the devoured the two gallons in two minutes.7

Who were the miners who led this fight? The best known was Alexander Bradley, a 32-years-old mule driver who worked in the Mt. Olive mines. Born in England in 1866, Bradley came to Illinois at age seven and within two years was already working as a slate picker in a Collinsville mine called "Devil's Hole." By the mid-1890's, Bradley had traveled widely throughout the Midwest, tramping with other unemployed miners to Chicago and taking part in the famous march to Washington, DC of Coxey's Army of the unemployed of 1894. Now living in Mt. Olive, Bradley led the march which stepped off in July, 1897. In the course of the strike, "General" Bradley, as he became known, developed a well-earned reputation as a colorful and charismatic figure.8 Arriving with his "troops" in Collinsville, for instance, Bradley sported "corduroy trousers, a light blue coat, white shirt, brown straw hat, toothpick (narrow and pointed) shoes, at least three emblems of secret societies and several rings on his fingers...[as well as] a light cane or a furled umbrella."9

On other occasions Bradley wore a Prince Albert coat and a silk black top hat, and seemed to have an unflappable ability to inspire his fellow miners to continue the fight. Using ballads and cajoling and the presence of mass marches, Bradley inspired his fellows to fight for their "liberty" in the same way they braved the mines every day underground. Their time was coming, he assured his brothers and their families.

The strike and mass actions of 1897 developed new rank and file leadership, including recently arrived immigrant miners from Eastern Europe, who generally worked as unskilled loaders in the Illinois mines. Right beside General Bradley as he stepped off from Mt. Olive, for instance, marched a Slavic co-worker, probably Bohemian, who bore aloft a huge American Flag.10 Workers seemed to discover that mass action and inclusivity could bring victory.

New immigrants who had learned these lessons, including Bohemians, also would be among those who streamed into Virden from surrounding communities and who shed their blood at Virden on October 12. Compared to Mt. Olive miners, who included a relatively high proportion of new immigrants at this time - mainly from Croatia, Bohemia and Italy - Virden's mining work force was overwhelmingly English-speaking, both native-born and from England and Scotland.11 One National Guard officer at Virden, reflecting widespread anti-immigrant prejudice, suggested that "foreigners" from outside of town were responsible for the violence at Virden. Anti-immigrant prejudice also surfaced in the UMWA in the period after the 1987 strike. But when miners at a subsequent convention used the derogatory term "hunkies" to refer to Eastern European immigrants, a union leader recalled the role they had played in the great strike. "If it were not for those so called Austrians, Hunks and Bohemians before the '97 strike," he told the delegates, "you would not have what you have today. Those were the men who went out and ate grasshopper soup to help win the strike."12 As in 1897, the 1898 battle at Virden found new and old immigrants and native born joining together to enforce a determined solidarity. This time some would make the ultimate sacrifice for the union.

What did the union fighters of 1898 achieve? Most obviously, they secured nearly statewide recognition of the UMWA and turned back employers' attempt to undercut the newly won 1897 standards. In addition to the tonnage scale increase, which meant a wage increase, they won an eight-hour day for hourly workers, mine-run payment for coal (limited screening), official status for the union pit committee, and a check-off of union dues. The victorious strike also brought to the fore a new generation of younger, militant UMWA leaders such as John Walker, Adolph Germer, and Frank Hayes, all of whom became leaders also in the new Socialist Party of America. Illinois went on to gain the well-deserved reputation as the single largest, richest and most militant district in the UMWA. A generation of union fighters would remember the significance of Virden in securing Illinois' reputation in the larger national union and in the pantheon of labor history. In subsequent contracts the Illinois UMWA won October 12 as an official holiday - Virden Memorial Day - as a way to honor their fallen comrades.

Famed union organizer Mother Jones, the "Miners' Angel," was so inspired by the heroism displayed at Virden that she asked to be buried next to the "brave boys" who gave their life for the union. In tribute to them, she lies buried in the Mt. Olive Union Miners' Cemetery today."13

A less obvious achievement of the Battle of Virden is something that did not happen: Republican Governor Tanner did not send in troops to break the strike. At Homestead and Pullman, government troops had played a decisive part in defeating workers. Unlike their corporate counterparts in these battles, the stubborn Illinois coal operators found that the State of Illinois would not so easily cooperate. T.C. Loucks and Fred Lukins of Chicago-Virden Coal initially expected and then desperately pleaded with Governor Tanner to call out the National Guard for strikebreaking duty. But he refused. Only after the gunfight in Virden did the troops arrive, and for the next month they prevented strikebreakers from landing in Virden. Part of the explanation is that 1898 was a mid-term election year. In stumping for Congressional candidates, the Republican Governor Tanner competed with former Governor John Peter Altgeld, Democratic Party leader and darling of the Illinois labor movement. As a result, Tanner posed as the friend of the strikers.

 

Unfortunately for the cause of broader labor solidarity, the way he did this was to whip up the miners' racial, class and nativist prejudices against "imported labor." At one point, while careful not to mention the question of skin color, Tanner boasted that he would not allow Illinois to become a "dumping ground for the criminal and idle classes of other countries or other states."14 Tanner was undoubtedly gunning for votes. But, aside from the low quality of this kind of "help" for the miners, it would be a mistake to see only election strategy at work. A good deal of the credit for the Governor's "pro-labor" stand must go to the strikers of the previous year who had convinced the large majority of the state's coal operators, and the state's political establishment, that they had no choice but to deal with the UMWA if they wished to get their precious coal to market. The union had garnered a great deal of public sympathy for their cause. After all, nearly all the coal companies had already signed with the UMWA. Because of the militant solidarity displayed in 1897, that is, Governor Tanner had little choice in 1898.

And what of the limits of miners' success in the Battle of Virden? That would have to be the powerful and ongoing scourge of racism in the region.

Ironically, just as the divisions between native-born and immigrant miners were beginning to weaken, those separating Black and white miners seemed to grow stronger. This is despite the fact that African -American union miners, mainly from Springfield, were among those who patrolled the tracks approaching Virden in a show of solidarity with their Virden brothers. In addition, a group of Black union miners in Alabama, learning that operators sought to trick Black workers into serving as strikebreakers in the nearby town of Pana, held a meeting that denounced the scheme. Moreover, most of the penniless Black miners and their families who arrived in Virden refused to serve as strikebreakers once they learned the truth of the situation. But the operators' divide and conquer tactic was partly successful. It seemed to many Illinois miners that "Negro" and "strikebreaker" meant the same thing.

 

This misidentification made it easier for Governor Tanner to pose as a friend of labor, as he subtly played on the racial prejudices of working people. In the larger international context, such ideas of racial superiority were critical in mobilizing the entire nation to fight wars against the Spanish Empire in 1898 and then against the heroic Filipino independence movement during these years. Closer to home, at least in part as a result of the racist dynamics of the strike, the Black population of the region's mining towns remained quite small. Compared to the other major unions of the day, the UMWA succeeded to an impressive degree at including Blacks in its ranks. But the racially segregated nature of the mine workforce in this corner of Illinois pointed to the challenges for forging working-class solidarity which lay ahead."15

 

Which brings us to the relevance of the Battle of Virden for working people today. If Virden can teach anything to workers facing the seemingly overwhelming power today's global corporate giants, it is that broad-based class solidarity workers, and the broader the better. Despite the persistence of racial divisions, and not even considering that miners were 100% male in that era, it was the solidarity and rising class consciousness which did exist that made the difference.16 Even the victory in arms at Virden would not have been possible without the rank-and-file style of mobilization coal miners developed the year before. The key tactic was the mass march, led by General Bradley and others, which sought to take the strike to every nook and cranny of the Illinois coalfields. The following year that determination was reflected in miners willingness to stand in the trenches, in the rains of October, to defend their fellow workers against corporate greed. It was the massive disciplined action of the rank and file which ultimately led the industry journal Coal Age to call the Illinois coalfields a "citadel of unionism." It was Bradley's troops who made him a General. There are plenty of unused troops and undiscovered Generals in the world today. Learning the history of the Battle of Virden is one way to unleash that hidden but powerful potential.

 

Carl Weinberg is the author of Labor, Loyalty and Rebellion: Southwestern Illinois Coal Miners and World War I (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005). He teaches at DePauw University.

 

 

1. Keiser, "Union Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Illinois;" Hicken, "The Virden and Pana Mine Wars of 1898."

2. United Mine Workers of America, District 12, Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Consecutive and the Second Biennial Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, District 12 (Peoria, IL: UMWA, 1918) 177.

3. Chicago Daily Tribune 4 July 1897.

4. Hicken, "Mine Union Radicalism."

5. Donk Brothers Coal Co. v. Stroff, 200 Illinois 485; O'Fallon Coal Co. v. Lacquet, 198 Illinois 126.

6. Harold William Perrigo, "Factional Strife in District No. 12, United Mine Workers of America, 1919-1933" (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1933) 29; Chris Evans, History of the United Mine Workers, Vol. II (Indianapolis: UMWA, 1900) 457-58; Keiser, "The Union Miners Cemetery," 242-3.

7. Chicago Daily Tribune 18 July 1897.

8. Edward A. Wieck, "General Alexander Bradley," American Mercury 8 (May 1926): 69-70.

9. Keiser, "Union Miners Cemetery," 241

10. Wieck, "General Alexander Bradley," 71

11. Stephanie Elise Booth, "The Relationship Between Radicalism and Ethnicity in Southern Illinois Coal Fields, 1870-1940," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Illinois State University, 1983) 260-1, 268.

12. United Mine Workers of America, District 12, Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Consecutive and the Second Biennial Convention, 520.

13. Quoted in Keiser, "Union Miners Cemetery," 256.

14. Chicago Daily Tribune 15 October 1898

15. Chris Evans, History of the United Mine Workers, 606; For more on this key issue, see Keiser, "Black Strikebreakers and Racism;" Lewis, Black Coal Miners; and Lewis and Foner, Black Worker, Volume IV.

16. For a wide-ranging set of essays on the challenge of solidarity over the years, see Laslett, ed., The United Mine Workers of America.

On March 25, 1947, a mine exploded in Centralia, Illinois killing 111 miners.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor reports:

"The explosion was caused when an underburdened shot or blown-out shot ignited coal dust. The mine was exceedingly dry and dusty. Heavy deposits of coal dust were present along the roadways and on the roof, ribs, and timbers in working places and entries. At the time of the explosion most of the men were at the man trips on the entries waiting for the shot firers to complete lighting the shots so they could ride to the shaft bottoms on the man trips. At the time of the explosion 142 men were in the mine. Of those, 65 were killed by burns and violence and 45 by afterdamp. Eight men were rescued but one died from the effects of afterdamp. Twenty-four escaped unaided."

Although the explosion was a tremendous tragedy, loss of life in underground coal mines was a common occurrence. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President John L. Lewis stated, "There were more casualties in coal mining than in the armed forces in 1942." The United Mine Workers of America had emphasized mine safety since the 1930's.

Following the disaster UMWA President John L. Lewis invoked the union's right to call memorial days. As a memorial to those killed at Centralia, the miners did not work for six day, beginning March 29, 1947.

Maier B. Fox writes, "The disaster was of such magnitude that both the House and Senate held committee hearings on mine safety. Lewis used those forums to castigate both the operators and the government. He told the representatives that historically the operators philosophy was, 'We kill them, you (the union) provide for their widows and orphans.'"

In his testimony Lewis also stated:

If we must grind up human flesh and bone in the industrial machine we call modern America, then before God I assert that those who consume coal and you and I who benefit from that service because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first, and we owe security to their families if they die.

For years, Lewis and the UMWA had vocally advocated for improved mine safety as well as a welfare and retirement fund. The Centralia Mine Disaster provided the catalyst to force the government to act and the mining industry to acquiesce. The UMWA Welfare and Retirement Fund continues to this day.

A comprehensive history of the United Mine Workers of America is available at many public libraries.
United We Stand: The United Mine Workers of America 1890-1990 by Maier B. Fox and published by the UMWA.