|
The series of incidents that have most frequently been referred to as the Colorado Labor Wars involved a struggle between the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and the mine operators, particularly the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association (CCMOA), during the period from 1903 to 1904. Like so many other fights between the miners and the owners of the mines, this was a brutal and bloody period in Colorado's history. A nearly simultaneous strike in Colorado's northern and southern coal fields was also met with a military response by the Colorado National Guard.〔Morris Friedman, The Pinkerton's labor spy, Wilshire book co., 1907, pages 156-170〕 Colorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred primarily between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one exception, sided with the mine operators. Additional participants in Colorado's labor struggles have included the National Guard, often informally called the militia; private contractors such as the Pinkertons, Baldwin–Felts, and Thiel detective agencies; and various labor entities, employers' organizations such as the Mine Owners' Associations, and vigilante groups and employer-sponsored citizens groups, such as the Citizens' Alliance. Two scholars who studied American labor violence concluded, "There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904."〔Philip Taft and Philip Ross, "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome," The History of Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, 1969.〕 ==Overview of miners' disputes in Colorado== In 1880, miners represented 29 percent of Colorado's working population, declining to 13.7 percent in 1900.〔Mark Wyman, Hard Rock Epic, Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910, 1979, page 202.〕 Colorado miners were divided into two groups: hard rock miners, and coal miners. After Colorado's gold rush and silver boom exhausted easily accessible surface deposits, hard rock miners congregated primarily where precious metal mining was lucrative, in Colorado's mountainous areas. The mining camps spawned numerous mountain communities such as Central City, Leadville, Telluride, Idaho Springs, and the Cripple Creek District. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Colorado Labor Wars」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|