Maine Owl

One of my goals with the Maine Owl Calendar project was to note events in labor history that I find particularly meaningful. This week marks the 93rd anniversary of such an event: the Great Mesabi Mine Workers Strike of 1916. At the time, my father was a young boy born to a Finnish immigrant family on the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota.

Here is how the late Philip S. Foner described the beginning of the strike in Vol. 4 of the 10-volume "History of the Labor Movement in the United States":

On June 2, 1916, an Italian miner, Joe Gruni, employed underground at the St. James mine near Aurora, opened his pay envelope and saw that his check was for a sum much less than he had understood his contract called for.

"To hell with such wages," he cried; he threw down his pick, and decided to quit.

To his surprise, the entire shift in the underground mine went along with him. Gruni and his coworkers went from stope to stope it Aurora, crying: "We've been robbed long enough. It's time to strike."

By June 4 every mine in Aurora was shut down, and every miner was a striker. The strikers appointed a committee and sent an appeal to the mine owners to meet for the purpose of adjusting the miners’ grievances. The request went unanswered.

Thus began the great strike of 1916. The word "strike" began to reverberate out of Aurora as a group of Finnish and other Socialists spread the news throughout the Range. Parades were organized, and the striking Aurora miners marched over 75 miles of mountain road from town to town, passing the word "strike" from place to place. The procession, sometimes augmented by children and wives wheeling baby carriages, picked up recruits for the strike. Within a week, many of the mines throughout the Range were closed.

Philip S. (Philip Sheldon) Foner, "History of the labor movement in the United States, Vol. 4: The Industrial Workers of the World 1905-1917", International Publishers Co, 1972, ISBN 0717803961

This strike apparently had serious consequences for my grandparents, who were merchants in Gilbert, Minnesota. I have little specific information. But what I believe happened at this time is that too many miners not working during the summer of 1916 and who owed money to my grandfather could not pay their bills for work clothing. He also was stuck with a shop full of inventory on which he owed money but which could not be sold, a double whammy. Nobody was going to bail him out. My grandparents were bankrupt and forced to liquidate all of their property. They had no love lost for strike leaders, Finnish radicals, or organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

The main issue in the strike was pay. Striking miners wanted $2.75 to $3.50 per day versus less than $2 per day net under the harsh contracts in force at the time. They also wanted to be paid twice per month instead of once, to be paid full wages owed immediately upon quitting, and to have an eight-hour work day. They did not even demand recognition of a union!

The rest of the story is one of anti-striker newspaper attacks, brutal physical repression, even killings. After three months, the strike basically was lost as miners slowly returned, working under the same terms they had before the strike. However, Foner explains that most of the companies involved had increased wages 20-30% within a few months. The strike did have some effect.