Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Waging a Grim Battle

Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 3, 1913
The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Exert Their Labor Power

From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:

THE COPPER STRIKE

[Part I of II]

WAY up in the upper peninsula of Northern Michigan 15,000 copper miners are waging a grim battle against the absentee Copper Kings. The men have worked ten and twelve-hour shifts for many years at an average wage of only $2.00 a day. Recently the companies decided to force the men to work one-man drills. Three miles in the bowels of the earth they planned to send the human moles of Michigan to dig and bring forth wealth for the spending of the bosses.

But they reckoned without the splendid spirit of the miners, who have struggled along under growing pressure from the mine bosses, while the cost of living climbed merrily upward and the standard of living went down with every leap in the prices of commodities.

The mine boys came to a few conclusions themselves and decided to raise the price of their LABOR POWER. They also made up their minds that they would enact a new labor law (among themselves) and cut short their underground workday.

They looked over the financial reports of the Calumet & Hecla Company and discovered that the mine owners had only put $1,200,000 into the mines originally and had taken out over $120,000,000 for their OWN PROFITS. Most of the mine owners live in cultured Boston and have never seen the inside of a shaft. One man draws down $120,000 salary as president and director of the company. The first vice-president (also a director) holds up the boys for $70,000, while other directors and officers make away with $45,000 and $40,000 each, and the directors are rewarded with a bagatelle of $20,000 a year. From one mine alone the officers of the company grant themselves $370,000 in loot (”salaries”) every year.

Now the boys in the copper mines are fast becoming Socialists. They are all disgusted with the portion they are receiving. They run, manage and work the mines. They are beginning to doubt the wisdom of DIVIDING up so foolishly and partially for the benefit of the mine owners. They are organizing today to FIGHT the bosses in order to secure MORE time to plan for a better resistance later on. The day is coming when they are going to take possession of the mines in the name of the MINE WORKERS, just as the steel workers will take over the steel mills, just as a united working class intends to take over all the mills, factories, shops and mines to be run and operated only in the interests of those WHO WORK and RUN and MANAGE them. They are going to STOP MAKING PROFITS FOR BOSSES.

This is the way all militant labor wars are tending. Today the copper miners are fighting for $3.00 a day and an eight-hour day. Tomorrow they will demand the full value of the copper they dig.

Also, the men are determined to abolish the one-man mine drill.

[Emphasis added.]