Commentary: We’re still mourning the dead and fighting for the living

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?article_1_250

By Berry Craig 27 April 2010

PADUCAH, Kentucky - A century ago, many immigrant coal miners worked long hours at low pay in jobs that threatened their lives and limbs. George F. Baer didn’t care. As he said, “They don’t suffer. Why, they can’t even speak English.”
Baer was the chief spokesman for the Anthracite coal trust in 1902, when Pennsylvania hard coal miners, immigrant and native-born, went on strike. The miners sought a pay hike, shorter hours, safer working conditions and recognition of their union, the Mine Workers. The strike was settled after President Theodore Roosevelt intervened.

The coal trust was made up of a group of railroad and mining companies that controlled nearly all of the Anthracite mines. Baer was president of the Reading Railroad.

He rates only a few lines in most history books. Even so, Baer is worth remembering.

Because of employers like him—Massey Energy Co. President and CEO Don Blankenship comes to mind—unions still must “mourn the dead, fight for the living.” That’s the unofficial motto of Workers Memorial Day, which will again be observed April 28. (I’m with UMWA President Cecil Roberts. I want to see Blankenship cuffed, zipped in an orange jump suit and made to do the perp walk.)

Unions have marked every April 28 as Workers Memorial Day since 1989. The date was chosen because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) became part of the U.S. Labor Department on April 28, 1971, and because of a similar April 28 commemoration in Canada, according to the AFL-CIO.

FULL story at link.