Next Time We Strike

IX. Retrenchment and Disenchantment, 1924-32

Chapter IX Retrenchment and Disenchantment, 1924-32 Throughout the remainder of the! 1920s, union efforts in Utah coal fields were subject to much the same intolerance and reaction that characterized the rest of the country. In the first legislative session to be held after the 1922 strike, a Right-to-Work Act was passed and signed by Governor Charles Mabey that guaranteed workers the right to employment without union affiliation even though a majority of the shop or industry workers had become organized. Moreover, union leaders and members were prohibited from almost any attempt to encourage their fellow workers to join the union. Persons violating the law were guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine not to exceed $300 or to imprisonment for a period not to exceed six months or to both. The Wyoming Labor Journal declared that the Utah lawmakers had passed a law to "protect scabs" and that the stale was governed by an unholy combination of big business and the Mormon church, which the Journal considered nothing more than "a highly commercialized church organization which teaches its converts that it is not Godly to demand more than the employer is willing to give.»! Although the open-shop movement was the primary weapon against unionism, Utah coal operators considered other methods for eliminating the unions from the coal industry. In an address to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Society in October 1924, Thomas A. Stroup, superintendent of the Utah Fuel Company mine at Clear Creek, argued that through a complete mechanization of the mines this could be accomplished . Stroup declared that labor relations in the coal industry could only function if such "artificial handlings of the check off of union dues and certification of miners by the state ... [were] swept away." 153 The Next Time We Strike Obviously Stroup's scheme would leave the coal miner completely at the mercy of the employer. However, according to Stroup, this would be the most advantageous situation for the miners because they were part of the 80 to 90 percent of the population who were incapable of "clear thinking or self direction" and made up the "preponderance of the subnormal in our working population."2 Categorized in these demeaning terms, the average worker was expected to be like clay in the hands of the skillful union organizer. Defeated in the crusade for union recognition during the 1922 strike, Utah coal miners still hoped during the remainder of the decade to establish a union eventually. District 22 officers from Wyoming made periodic visits to Utah. In Helper a local union of the UMWA, No. 1984, survived and included members coming from the surrounding company towns where locals were not tolerated. Frank Bonacci, employed at the Spring Canyon mine, served as financial secretary for the local union and collected dues from several Utah miners.3 Another local union was also maintained in Scofield. The two communities of Scofield and Helper continued as sanctuaries for the miners from the ever-watchful and often-repressive coal company. In April 1924, the Wyoming Labor Journal carried an article discussing the Pahvant Coal Company's proposal to sell bonds to "union and liberal minded people of Utah" and then to operate its mines in Spring Canyon under an agreement with the UMWA.4 Although the plan had the endorsement of at least one official of the Utah Federation of Labor and although many active Salt Lake and Ogden union men were reported to have invested in the company, the scheme failed. Aecording to labor spies, the UMWA was not the only group to show an interest in the Carbon County miners. In a letter to Thomas R. Stockett, general manager of the Spring Canyon Coal Company, dated August 12, 1924, Arthur McArthur, district manager of the Globe Inspection Company, reported that the Industrial Workers of the World was preparing for an active campaign among the Utah coal miners during the coming fall and winter with the hope that by the spring of 1925 it would be able "to dictate terms of employment." The letter quoted a report submitted August 2, 1924, by the Globe Company's inspector. While in Price a few days ago I met two men who were not at all afraid to acknowledge membership in the I.W.W. organization. At the time they were working in Helper but said they intended to get on at one of the coal mines just as soon as work picks up. They...