On the field of organized labor Scranton has for many years occupied a leading position and today there are few cities in the country where the workingmen are as well organized. Most of these local labor bodies are also affiliated with the Central Labor union of Scranton and vicinity, an organization made up of delegates from the sub-bodies.
It was in Scranton that the Knights of Labor attained its greatest influence in the latter part of the last century when Terrence V Powderly, of Scranton, was head of that great organization of workingmen. Here in Scranton, too, the present great union of mine workers in the anthracite fields, had its real inception in 1899 when John Mitchell came to organize the men of the mines. So, too, in the building and metal trades, the textile industry and all forms of labor, Scranton was a fertile field once the work of organization started. Yearly the city has seen great demonstrations by the union men and women on Labor Day and other labor holidays.
In the early days of Scranton there were no labor organizations because the population was mainly agricultural. Up to the time of the incorporation of the city, in 1866, the only industries here that employed large numbers of men were the mines and the steel mills and the mines were still largely in the experimental state. It was not until after the city was incorporated that the men of the mines began to organize for better conditions, and the organization in which they enlisted was the Workingmen's Benevolent association.
In 1869 times were hard and the cost of living was very high. The mine workers found it hard to live on the wages they were making and after a number of meetings they demanded a wage increase of ten cents on a car of coal. The Delaware & Hudson and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western companies refused to grant the demand and a strike was called on May 25, 1869. Every colliery of the two companies, except the Roaring Brook mine of the D L & W was tied up. The Pennsylvania Coal company was not affected, its wage rate being higher than the other companies. After several months, during which some of the mines started up, the strike was settled by The D L & W and D & H companies agreeing to pay the same wage as the Pennsylvania company and to make no reduction until the next December without thirty days notice. The settlement came on August 27.
The next big coal strike was in 1871, and lasted from January 6 to May 22. In December, 1870, the companies had cut the wages of the men from from $1.31 to eighty-six cents a car. John Siney, father of the Miners' union and one of the greatest labor leaders of the last century came here during that strike to help organize. He arranged with Franklin B Gowan, head of the Reading company, that miners be permitted to produce sufficient coal to keep the steel mills going, that arrangement being made after mill men threatened to import Nova Scotia coal. In this strike the Rockwell breaker in Providence was burned and there were some riots, but none of a serious nature until May 15 when two men were shot during trouble in West Scranton. Towards the latter end of the strike the rolling mills were also tied up.
The shootings occurred when a body of miners who quit the strikers and returned to work in the Briggs' breaker in West Scranton, met a body of strikers at Fellows' Corners as they were marching from the mine. The men who went back to work were armed with rifles and they had an escort of militia, the state troops having been brought into the region in April. Stones were thrown and one of the men who had returned to work fired his rifle. The bullet killed two men, Benjamin Davis and Daniel Jones.
The strike of 1871 spread to all parts of the anthracite fields. It was ended May 22, 1871, on a compromise basis, the men going back to work pending the result of arbitration by districts.
By 1874 the Miners' national union had been formed and was being well organized here. On December 31, 1874, the companies cut the wages ten per cent. On January 7, John Siney, head of the Miners' union, and John O'Halloran, head of the Luzerne district, came here to address a mass meeting. During the winter of 1876-1877 the mines were working on one-third time and the wages of the men were again reduced, this time fifteen percent. There were no cars to carry the coal and no market for it. The whole country was in the throes of labor difficulties and a big strike had been called in Pittsburg, the miners and iron workers declaring they could not live on the wages they were getting, and submitting demands to their employers.
On July 25, 1877, a general strike was called on the Delaware & Hudson and D L & W railroads. On July 24, 1,000 employes of the rolling mills had struck for a twenty-five per cent wage increase. On July 26 the D L & W miners struck for twenty-five per cent more wages and they were followed on the next three days by the miners of the Delaware & Hudson and Pennsylvania companies. The head house and bridge at Plane No 5 on the Pennsylvania Gravity railroad were burned and that line was tied up. A big railroad strike was on all over the country and industry was paralysed.
On July 30, the D L & W railroad strike ended, the men returning to work on the appeal of the city authorities. They did not get a wage increase.
The miners continued on strike and on August 1 there was a clash between some of them and armed guards at Washington and Lackawanna avenues, and four men were killed and a number injured. Mayor McKune, the chief executive of the city at the time, was injured during the rioting.
On August 2, 3,000 state troops arrived here and within a few days 900 regulars came. The strike was continued but the men gradually returned to work. On October 16, 1877, the last of the strikers went back to work, without any settlement, other than a promise to make the best wage adjustments possible.
The Miners' union went through many vicissitudes after that strike. The Knights of Labor became stronger here and T V Powderly, a Scranton man, was elected to their highest office. In 1878 he was elected mayor of Scranton on a labor ticket and twice re-elected. Daniel J Campbell, now city concilman, was one of the big figures in labor circles in those days and was a district master workman of the Knights of Labor.
The Miners' union dwindled and the Knights of Labor were replaced by craft organizations until in the late nineties there was hardly a vestige of a union in the anthracite mines.
In 1899 John Mitchell, president of the Miners' union, made his first trip here and began the work of organizing the miners. A district union had been formed in July that year with Thomas D Nicholls, later a Congressman, as president, and C W Baxter, secretary-treasurer. Frank Miller, of Nanticoke, was vice-president. District 7 was also organized in the Hazleton region, and in the same year District 9 was organized in the Schuylkill region.
In January, 1900, John T Dempsey, now president of District No 1, and one of the big figures in the union, was elected secretary-treasurer of the Scranton district. On May 1 of that year the miners had a big street parade and a mass meeting on Farr Heights in West Scranton. Fred Dilcher and other organizers addressed that meeting and remained in the field. In July, a convention of District 1 was held and a call issued for a joint three district convention. That convention was held in Hazleton in August, and demands were framed and committees appointed to lay them before the operators. The districts re-convened in September and when their committees reported that the operators had refused to confer on the demands, it was voted to call a strike unless the demands were granted. The men asked for a twenty per cent wage increase, cheaper powder, the abolition of the company store evil, the eight hour day, union recognition, weighing of coal and other concessions.
THe strike was called September 17 and ended on October 29, a day since observed by the miners as a holiday, and called Mitchell day for their leader. They received a wage increase of ten per cent, and other slight concessions, the wages to continue at the increased rate for one year. In 1901 that agreement on wages was renewed for another year, by notice from the mine owners.
In the strike of 1900 the Miners' union numbered 8,000 men out of 160,000 employed in the hard coal fields.
In 1902 the miners renewed their demands for a twenty per cent wage increase, the eight hour day and other concessions. The demands were refused by the operators and April 1 fixed as the day for a strike. Civic associations sought to make peace and the strike was delayed until May 12. The operators steadfastly refused to confer on the demands and after several months President THodore Rossevelt intervened. He called representatives of the operators and miners together and suggested arbitration. The operators refused, but after three weeks agreed to the president's proposal,