Talk:Labor spies/ToBeSummarised
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[edit] Intro
| “ | To stop a union proponent—a pusher, in the anti-union lexicon—the [union] buster will go anywhere, not just to the lunch room, but into the bedroom if necessary. The buster not only is a terrorist; he is also a spy. My team and I routinely pried into workers' police records, personnel files, credit histories, medical records, and family lives in search of a weakness that we could use to discredit union activists. | ” |
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- Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, Confessions of a Union Buster[1]
Some of the statistics cited by researchers suggest that, historically, unions have been the frequent targets of orchestrated campaigns[2] employing labor spies, indicating that such actions against labor organizations are often the result of strategic considerations.
But corporations do not have a monopoly on intrigue, on the necessity of obtaining intelligence, nor on violence. Some of the terms described above may also be applied to operatives conducting covert activities at the behest of labor organizations. Indeed, competitive union leadership may feel a need to spy upon other unions, or even upon their own members.
Corporate officials are not elected. Corporations tend to have hierarchical decision-making structures which may be more impervious to penetration than are their union equivalents. Therefore, attacks by organized labor against corporate facilities, when they occur, are probably more short-term, more spontaneous, and may involve "targets of opportunity."
However, within the field of labor relations, union busters make the largest salaries. And in 1993 there were seven thousand attorneys and consultants in the United States who made their living busting unions. The war against unions is a $1 billion-plus industry.[3]
[edit] Case histories and analysis
[edit] Pinkerton agent in the anthracite mines
One of the best known undercover agents was James McParland who, under the alias of James McKenna, infiltrated a secret society of Pennsylvania coalminers called the Molly Maguires. Debate continues over the extent of guilt on the part of the Mollies, and over the question of whether they were in some sense a labor organization, or merely a ring of assassins lashing out over unjust working conditions, inadequate pay, and the pressures of persecution against their Irish-Catholic status. In any event, McParland's testimony resulted in nineteen of the Molly Maguires going to the gallows.
[edit] Siringo at Coeur d'Alene
In 1892, Pinkerton Agent Charles A. Siringo, working out of the Denver Pinkerton office, played a significant role in ending the Coeur d'Alene strike. Siringo had been hired by the Mine Owners' Protective Association (MOA) to work at the Gem mine in Gem, Idaho. Siringo used the alias C. Leon Allison to join the local miners' union, ingratiating himself by buying drinks and loaning money to his fellow miners. He was elected to the post of secretary, providing access to all of the union's books and records.
Siringo promptly began to report all union business to his employers, allowing the mine owners to outmaneuver the miners on a number of occasions. Strikers planned to intercept a train of incoming strike breakers, so the mine owners dropped off the replacement workers in an unexpected location. The local union president, Oliver Hughes, ordered Siringo to remove a page from the union record book that recorded a conversation about possibly flooding the mines, the agent mailed that page to the Mine Owners' Association. Siringo also "told his employer's clients what they wanted to hear," referring to union officials such as George Pettibone as "dangerous anarchists."[4]
The mine owners had locked out the strikers, and were hiring strike breakers. Meanwhile, Siringo was suspected as a spy when the MOA's newspaper, the Coeur d'Alene Barbarian, began publishing union secrets. Although the union had advised the miners against violence,[5] their anger at discovering the infiltration prompted them to blow up the Frisco mine in Gem, capturing the Gem mine, plus 150 non-union miners and company guards. Concurrent with the explosion, hundreds of miners converged on Siringo's boarding house. But Siringo had sawed a hole in the floor, and made his escape after crawling for half a block under a wooden boardwalk. He fled to the hills above Coeur d'Alene.
The miners considered the battle over and issued a statement deploring "the unfortunate affair at Gem and Frisco." But the violence provided the mine owners and the governor with an excuse to bring in six companies of the Idaho National Guard to "suppress insurrection and violence." After the Guard secured the area, Siringo came out of the mountains to finger union leaders, and those who had participated in the attacks on the Gem and Frisco mines. He wrote that for days he was busy "putting unruly cattle in the bull pen." Siringo then returned to Denver, and the following year the miners formed the Western Federation of Miners because of the disastrous events in Coeur d'Alene in 1892. The WFM immediately called for outlawing the hiring of labor spies, but their demand was ignored.[6]
During his career with Pinkerton, Charles Siringo discovered that clients were being cheated, supervisors were stealing agency funds, and operatives were inflating normal conversations with targeted radicals into conspiracies.[7] When Siringo retired from the Pinkerton Agency, he was so disenchanted with his experiences that he wrote a book entitled Two Evil Isms. On the cover of the book, Uncle Sam was pictured in the grip of a boa constrictor with the names "Pinkertonism" and "Anarchism" on its sides. Frank Morn, author of The Eye That Never Sleeps, A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, observed the following about Siringo's attempt at a tell-all book:
Two extremes were being joined: unbridled violence by radicals was matched by unbridled violence by business interests... Such attacks were more damaging because they came from a man who had been [a Pinkerton] operative for over two decades.[8]
But the Pinkerton Agency suppressed Siringo's book, and only a few copies survive.
[edit] Colorado's Goldmine and Mill Strike of 1903-04
Agents sometimes situate themselves into key positions from which to wreak damage on the targeted union. One Pinkerton spy was assigned to sabotage the union's relief program during a 1903-04 strike which wreaked so significant an impact on the future of organized labor that it came to be called the Colorado Labor Wars.
Bill Haywood, Secretary Treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, wrote in his autobiography:
I had been having some difficulty with the relief committee of the Denver smelter men. At first we had been giving out relief at such a rate that I had to tell the chairman that he was providing the smelter men with more than they had had while at work. Then he cut down the rations until the wives of the smelter men began to complain that they were not getting enough to eat. Years later, when his letters were published in The Pinkerton Labor Spy, I discovered that the chairman of the relief committe (sic) was a Pinkerton detective, who was carrying out the instructions of the agency...[9]
The individual responsible for revealing this sabotage was Morris Friedman, the former stenographer of Pinkerton agent James McParland, who had moved to Denver and managed the regional Pinkerton office. Friedman found the practices of the detective agency in general, and of McParland in particular, revolting. His views are captured in a passage from his 1907 book The Pinkerton Labor Spy,
The readiness of the Western Federation [of Miners] to resent the smallest encroachments on the rights of its humblest members, the generalship displayed by the organization in its struggles with different mine owners, and the fearless and vigorous campaigns of organization carried on by the Federation, have naturally aroused the fear and apprehension of mine owners; and these fears have been studiously fanned into flames of blind and furious hatred by Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, in the endeavor of the latter institution to obtain business. At the present time in many parts of the West we find Capital openly or secretly engaged in a bitter struggle with the Western Federation of Miners, to the satisfaction and immense profit of the Pinkerton Agency.
The Agency was the first to notice the activity of the Federation, and the great financial possibilities which might be realized by engaging in a prolonged struggle with it.
But it is perhaps a mistake to say the Agency, for it was, more properly speaking, James McParland, of Mollie Maguire notoriety, whose sharp glance first took jealous note of the rapid growth of this labor union.[10]
The Pinkerton agency first came to national attention when agent McParland infiltrated and then testified against the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields, resulting in executions and prison sentences for many of the miners.[11]
In his exposé of the Pinkerton Agency, Friedman provides background on the sabotage efforts of A.W. Gratias, known to Pinkerton supervisors as "No. 42."
No. 42 was invited to join the union, and a short time after was an influential member... Mr. McParland himself drew up the instructions for No. 42. To begin with, the operative was instructed to create trouble between the leaders of the union. This he accomplished, and soon the union was divided into a number of hostile camps... The operative was next instructed to agitate the question of strike benefits among the men, so that they would demand financial aid from the Western Federation of Miners, and he was also told to intrigue against some of the leaders, so that the union would expel them. The chiefs being out of the way, Mr. McParland hoped that the rank and file would call the strike off.[12]
The operative became so popular with the men for demanding relief that he was appointed chairman of the Relief Committee. McParland instructed him to provide relief in such large amounts that it would drain the treasury of the Federation.
He not only supplied the men with necessities, but even with luxuries and cash to spend. The operative's extreme liberality endeared him to the men, who rewarded him by electing him president of the union. We now see the unique spectacle of a Pinkerton spy, under the direct orders of Manager McParland, as president of a Western Federation of Miners' local union, and directing a bitter strike against the smelter trust. On his elevation to the presidency the operative did not relinquish his position on the relief committee, nor would the men have permitted him to do so, as they were perfectly satisfied with the way the operative squandered the money of the Federation...[13]
No. 42 then became a delegate and reported to the Pinkerton Agency everything that happened at the annual WFM convention.[14] The operative also reported that WFM Secretary-Treasurer Haywood objected to the enormous weekly relief bills. McParland instructed the operative to "cut the relief down to an extent that would almost starve the strikers, and while doing this, to throw the blame on Secretary Haywood." The operative, now holding the key positions of delegate to the convention, head of the relief committee, and president of the local, responded that he would cut the relief "as much as possible, so as to cause dissatisfaction, and get the men against the union..."[15]
[edit] Intrigue and uncertainty during the Colorado Labor Wars
During the Western Federation of Miners' strike in 1903, there were several additional, very interesting examples of labor spy activities which might be cited. There was a plot to derail a train which, testimony seems to have indicated, was hatched by a detective for the railroad, and a detective for the Mine Owners' Association. The detectives charged union leaders with the crime, but they were acquitted.
There was an explosion at the Vindicator mine which took two lives. Little evidence was collected, and all who were charged with the crime were acquitted.
An explosion at the Independence Depot was never properly investigated; in fact, the powerful combination of the Mine Owners' Association, the Citizens' Alliance, and the Colorado National Guard thought it more expedient to use the disaster as a pretext to expel the union than to investigate the resultant deaths of thirteen miners.
And, there is the special case of Harry Orchard. While this WFM member confessed to numerous of the crimes committed during the Colorado Labor Wars (and to additional crimes, including assassinating an ex-governor,) his confessions were motivated by a desire to avoid the gallows. He also admitted to being a Pinkerton agent, and to being in the pay of the Mine Owners' Association.
Harry Orchard was convicted of murder in the assassination of Frank Steunenberg, an ex-governor of Idaho. But first, at McParland's prompting, Orchard tried (and failed) to take three leaders of the WFM with him.
Testimony and allegiances in the 1907 assassination conspiracy cases against Harry Orchard's alleged WFM taskmasters remain very difficult to sort out. For example, another Pinkerton agent in the Cripple Creek district, "No. 28", reported that the defense was offering him money to testify. His written account, telling the Pinkerton Agency essentially what they wanted to hear—presumably as a condition of receiving money from that source—describes how he proceeded to tell the WFM defense team what they wanted to hear; specifically, that he would attest to "the biggest collection of lies from beginning to end I ever saw on paper." However, Pinkerton Agent "No. 28" (whoever he may have been) was not called to testify for the defense.[16] Whether his mission might have been to betray the WFM defense team on the witness stand, subtly or dramatically, can only be guessed. The prosecution did not call him either, so we have only his reports to the Agency to go by.
McParland's Pinkerton Agency beat out the Thiel Detective Agency for the assignment to investigate Steunenberg's assassination. McParland believed that the Theil Agency must have been hired by the defense for, "Repeatedly in late 1906 and early 1907, he complained that Thiel Detectives were watching his every move..."[17]
Measured by the trail of mayhem and uncertainty left in Harry Orchard's wake — including the utter destruction of what had been a powerful union federation in the Cripple Creek district — the confessed assassin may have been the most successful sabateur, agent provocateur, and labor spy of all. Unfortunately, historians still debate who he was working for at any given moment; who (if anyone) paid him for committing his crimes; just where his sympathies and loyalties may have rested; and — other than the murder of an ex-governor — whether Orchard was even guilty of the most horrific crimes to which he confessed.[18] Confronted with an immediate visit to the gallows, a persuasive case can be made that ultimately, Orchard's confession served only himself.
[edit] Lynching of Frank Little
In 1917, Frank Little, head of the General Executive Board of the IWW, was lynched in Butte, Montana. Author Dashiell Hammett, who worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency at the time, was offered $5,000 to murder Little. Hammett refused, but Little was subsequently lynched by masked vigilantes, widely thought to be Pinkerton agents.[19] The Pinkerton Agency's role in union strike-breaking eventually disillusioned Hammett and he resigned, but used his knowledge of the agency's history and exploits as material for his novels.
[edit] Matewan
In West Virginia, mine owners used yellow-dog contracts and company-owned housing to control the miners. The company would terminate rental agreements with little or no notice, evicting strikers or suspected union miners. In 1920 in the town of Matewan, West Virginia, coal miners joined a new local of the United Mine Workers. Stone Mountain Coal Company hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to crush the union. Thirteen agents brought guns into town during eviction procedures. The town marshall, Sid Hatfield, attempted an arrest for violation of a weapons ordinance. The Baldwin-Felts agents took Hatfield prisoner, and Mayor C.C. (Cabell) Testerman challenged their authority to do so. Shooting erupted, with ten dying, seven of them Baldwin-Felts agents.
After testimony in the case, one of the union miners was expelled from the WFM. C.E. Lively had infiltrated the union for the company. Lively later testified before the United States Senate that he had been a Baldwin-Felts detective since 1912 or 1913. During that time he had worked undercover, with his duties taking him to Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. During the Ludlow strike in Colorado, Lively became vice-president of the United Mine Workers' local at La Veta. He returned to Mingo County, West Virginia in early 1920. He worked undercover at Howard Colleries, a company that had a tipple destroyed by fire. The investigation was kept secret even from the coal company, and Lively was fired when he was suspected of complicity.
Lively then traveled to Matewan, and participated in UMWA efforts to organize the War Eagle, Glen Alum, and Mohawk mines of Stone Mountain Coal Company. He reported all activities to the detective agency, and even brought his family to Matewan as part of his cover. He rented the lower floor of the UMWA union hall for a restaurant. Lively befriended members and officers of the union, and reported on their activities via mail sent on the train.
After the Battle of Matewan took the lives of seven Baldwin-Felts agents, Sid Hatfield and his friend Ed Chambers were summoned from the union stronghold at Matewan to answer minor strike-related sabotage charges in McDowell County. They walked up the courthouse steps, accompanied by their wives. They were shot dead by Baldwin-Felts agents C.E. Lively, Bill Salter, and Buster Pence on August 1, 1921. According to Mrs. Chambers, Lively placed a gun behind Ed Chambers' ear and fired the last shot even though she was pleading with him not to shoot again.
Neither of the two men had been armed, but one of the women reported that upon returning to the steps after having been led off by the guards, she discovered that both men had pistols in their hands. Pence was heard to remark, "kill 'em with one gun, and hand 'em another one." Although scores of people witnessed the attack, due to its brazeness they were afraid to testify. The three agents were acquitted on grounds of self-defense.[20] The murder of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers led to a general uprising of West Virginia coal miners.
[edit] The Colorado Coal Strike of 1927
John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) company went bankrupt in 1990. An immense quantity of archives from the corporation that was most closely associated with the Ludlow Massacre, and stood accused of facilitating the Columbine Massacre of 1927,[21] were turned over to a local historical society in Pueblo, Colorado.[22] Among the archives were reports of spies who were hired during a coal strike led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. The spies were assigned "to glean intelligence on the Wobblies’ strategies and tactics, to sow disinformation, to disrupt meetings and pickets, and to expose weaknesses in the IWW organization, finances, and leadership."[23]
Historian J. Bernard Hogg, who wrote "Public Reaction to Pinkertonism and the Labor Question," once observed:
Much of the hard feeling toward the Pinkertons was engendered by the fact that not infrequently detectives worked their way into high positions in the union and then revealed the intentions of the organization to the employer.[24]
Agents in the 1927 Columbine strike (we don't know if they were Pinkertons, or from a different agency) were able to approach and freely converse with top level strike leaders. Kristen Svanum was the "head of the IWW" in Colorado. An agent identified only as "XX" informed his employer,
Svanum stated that he had put in over $600.00 of his private funds to finance the IWW here in Colorado, stating that he was supplied with this money from a higher power; that he was working for a peaceful revolution of conditions in the U.S?A. [sic] I tried to cause him to say what this power was but could not do so.
Sometimes the efforts of agents failed. When a strike vote was pending, labor spy "XX" reported,
Smith and myself circulated through the crowd trying to get them to postpone the strike but without any success and when the vote was called it was unanimous for the strike, even the Northern Colorado delegates voting for it.[25]
Agents sought to influence the portrayal of the strikers in the media, hoping thereby to control subsequent events. Since 1900, the Colorado National Guard had a history of crushing strikes. CF&I agents knew that the threat of violence might bring the guard into the field, thus hindering the strike at taxpayer expense. Agent "XX" described himself as a strike leader when interviewed by the media, apparently seeking to bolster the credibility of his ominous message:
The A-P and Denver Post reporters think I am a dyed-in-the-wool wobbly and have tried to interview me. In speaking about the alleged carload of arms and ammunition I did not deny this “hokum” but intimitated [sic] that if there was any violence it was against the principles of Svanum and myself and the more select class of “wobblies” but that there was an awfully rough element of “reds” coming into the field and that we might not be able to hold them in hand. Do not know if they are gullible enough to absorb this kind of stuff but can tell better when this afternoon[’]s papers come out. If they play up strong that there is likely to be violence it might hasten action on part of state authorities.[26]
A different view of the "alleged carload of arms and ammunition" is offered by historian Joanna Sampson:
It was curious that an organization like the IWW with its revolutionary philosophy and its reputation for violence conducted a major strike with so little violence. Miners afterwards testified that members of the automobile caravans were searched by their own leaders to be sure they did not have liquor or firearms with them. In all the arrests of strikers for picketing, there is no case where a striker was accused of carrying firearms.[27]
In fact the undercover agent got his wish for state intervention:
On November 21 [of 1927], state policemen killed six pickets and injured dozens more... Despite the fact that the violence was the fault of the state police, Governor Adams used the so-called Columbine Massacre as an excuse to call out the National Guard to restore order throughout the state. With soldiers on guard at mine gates, mass picketing ceased and more and more miners returned to their jobs. The strike continued, but it lost considerable momentum.[28]
Hogg explains that agents advocating, provoking, or using violence is a common scenario:
A detective will join the ranks of the strikers and at once become an ardent champion of their cause. He is next found committing an aggravated assault upon some man or woman who has remained at work, thereby bringing down upon the heads of the officers and members of the assembly or union directly interested, the condemnation of all honest people, and aiding very materially to demoralize the organization and break their ranks. He is always on hand in the strikers' meeting to introduce some extremely radical measure to burn the mill or wreck a train, and when the meeting has adjourned he is ever ready to furnish the Associated Press with a full account of the proposed action, and the country is told that a "prominent and highly respected member" of the strikers' organization has just revealed a most daring plot to destroy life and property, but dare not become known in connection with the exposure for fear of his life![29]
[edit] Celebrated union organizers are not immune
Even ardent union organizers may yield to the temptation to spy on other unions during strikes, based perhaps upon misplaced sectarian loyalties or ideological differences. Mike Livoda of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) was one of the celebrated organizers from the Ludlow strike of 1913-14. Livoda was so revered by the mineworkers that he is the only individual buried at the Ludlow Monument.[30] When Professor Eric Margolis was researching the 1927 Wobbly strike, he encountered evidence that Mike Livoda "actually hired out to spy on the Wobblies and provided the Governor of Colorado with advice on strike breaking tactics."[31]
[edit] The United Mine Workers in the Rocky Mountain region
In the Western U.S., District 15 of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) is perhaps best known for the strike that spawned the Ludlow Massacre. In fact, the UMWA had tried to organize Colorado and Wyoming miners over a period of many years. This was a long, bitter, and hard-fought struggle.
[edit] The United Mine Workers in Wyoming
The Union Pacific Coal Company in Wyoming hired the services of Thomas J. Williams, Pinkerton Operative "No. 15."
Whenever UMWA President Mitchell sent an organizer to Wyoming, Operative Williams introduced himself as "an old, good-standing member of the United Mine Workers," and offered to help the new fellow with his tasks. Operative Williams gladly arranged all the secret meetings with Wyoming miners. After approximately fifty secret meetings in a row were broken up by mine superintendents or foremen attending unannounced, causing prospective union members to scatter, the UMWA acknowledged defeat in Wyoming.[32]
[edit] The United Mine Workers in Colorado
In 1903-04, the Pinkerton Agency had J. Frank Strong, operative "No. 28" in Fremont County, and Robert M. Smith, operative "No. 38" in Las Animas County. The two agents performed the same work — both had infiltrated the top ranks of the UMWA — yet they did not know each other. Because of this compartmentalization, the reports of these two operatives occasionally cite intelligence on each other.[33]
The coal miners were unhappy about low wages paid in scrip. These were company-issued coupons redeemable only at the company store, where prices were exorbitant. The miners also wanted the eight hour day, and the right to join a union. The UMWA declared a strike, and nearly all the coal miners in Colorado's Southern Field walked out.
The strike seemed destined to succeed. However, whenever the union sent an organizer to talk to miners, operative Strong would send that information to his Pinkerton handler. By chance, it seemed that groups of thugs would always obtain the same message. Morris Friedman, the former stenographer of the Pinkerton Agency in Colorado, reported:
As a result of Operative Smith's "clever and intelligent" work, a number of union organizers received severe beatings at the hands of unknown masked men, presumably in the employ of the company.[34]
Friedman offers examples of these incidents:
About February 13th, 1904, William Farley, of Alabama, a member of the [UMWA] National Executive Board ... and the personal representative of [UMWA] President Mitchell ... addressed coal miners' meetings ... [on their return trip] eight masked men held them up with revolvers, dragged them from their wagon, threw them to the ground, beat them, kicked them, and almost knocked them into insensibility.[35]
And,
On Saturday, April 30th, 1904, W.M. Wardjon, a national organizer of the United Mine Workers, while on board a train enroute to Pueblo, was assaulted by three men at Sargents, about thirty miles west of Salida. Mr. Wardjon was beaten into unconsciousness.[36]
Under repeated attack, the 1903-04 UMWA strike effort failed, with both leadership and membership despondent over the turn of events.[37]
However, UMWA President Mitchell was determined to reverse the failure. He decided that one special position, that of national organizer, should be created to oversee all organizing efforts for the union. After considering a range of candidates, Mitchell selected for this vital position, Pinkerton Operative "No. 38," Robert M. Smith.[38]
[edit] Colorado Fuel and Iron: a pattern of brutality
Morris Friedman accused the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), operated by John D. Rockefeller and his lieutenant in Colorado, Jesse Welborn, of responsibility for the beatings during the 1903-04 strike.[39]
If the accusations of orchestrated brutality by CF&I were true, this would be the same company that later hired two Baldwin-Felts gunmen, George Belcher and Walter Belk, who provoked and then shot UMWA organizer Gerald Lippiatt just before the 1913 strike.[40] This would be the same company that created the "Death Special" — an armored car equipped with two machine guns — in its Pueblo steel foundry, and turned it over to Baldwin-Felts agents who used it to fire, unprovoked, into the tent colonies of striking coal miners.[41] Even after a greater spasm of violence, the killing of women and children in the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, the new head of the enterprise, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., would maintain faith in the stewardship of CF&I by Jesse Welborn. In 1927, Welborn's attitudes hadn't much changed; he would convince the Colorado Governor that coal miners "needed to be kept in their place and that history would chastise him" if he did not dispatch the Colorado state rangers to troubled areas.[42] Soon after, the rangers committed another massacre of striking coal miners.
[edit] Union organizers turn tables on the company
However, in 1912, much of the bloodshed was still in the future. The United Mine Workers had discovered the extent to which CF&I relied upon spies, and union officials had learned their lesson well. The organization ended its efforts to form local unions. All membership cards were issued in secret, as members not of a local, but of the international union. Members did not know who had joined, and who had not. The company spy system was finally frustrated.
Unaware that organizing was continuing, the two main coal operators in the Colorado Southern Coal Field, CF&I and the Victor-American Fuel company, believed they had won. Abusive practices which had been softened during the open organizing drives were revived. Revolt was in the air.[43]
Then the United Mine Workers announced a new organizing drive in letters sent to the newspapers. But this organizing drive would be different:
Twenty-one pairs of organizers were put through a special course in the Denver [UMWA] office and then sent into the Southern Field. Their operation was simple, but effective. One member of each team was known as the active organizer; the other was the passive organizer. The so-called active organizer moved into the open and was known to everyone... as an organizer. His passive team mate posed as a miner looking for work. He cussed the unions and their leadership, and obtained a job in the heavily guarded mines. He made friends with officers of the company and, where possible, hired out as a coal company spotter... Once the passive organizer was installed in the mine, his active team mate sought new members in that mine. If a miner joined, the active organizer kept the man's membership secret and sent his card directly to the Denver office... If a working miner refused to join, his name was sent to the passive organizer who immediately reported to the company that John Cotino had joined the union. The result was always the same. The company sent John Cotino packing... In this manner a constant stream of anti-union and non-union men, the confirmed strike breakers and scabs, were kept streaming [out]. The companies unwittingly sent the faithful out, while the active organizer sent carefully coached men of union affiliation to apply for the jobs that had to be filled.[44]
In one month, this system caused the coal operators to fire more than 3,000 non-union men. Their places were taken by 3,000 union men.[45] In September of 1913 a strike was called, and twelve thousand miners laid down their tools. Only with significant brutality would this new strike be defeated.
