1916–1917 northern Minnesota lumber strike
On the morning of December 28, with the company refusing to institute these changes, up to 1,000 workers, representing a majority of the mill's 1,200-person workforce, went on strike and began picketing outside the plant.
However, early on, lumber management began to work with local law enforcement agencies and public officials to break the strike.
Additionally, many local municipalities began to enact laws that outright banned the IWW from their jurisdictions, with members facing either expulsion or imprisonment.
The IWW was able to claim a partial victory in the strike, as lumber companies instituted some changes to address the lumberjacks' poor working conditions and low pay.
Discussing the strike in a 1971 article, historian John E. Haynes said, "The resolution of that strike helped redefine the boundaries of permissible political and economic dissent in Minnesota, virtually erased the specter of strong IWW influence on the iron range, and served as a precedent for the state's treatment of dissenters during World War I".
[1] Despite this, shortly after it began, the IWW established a local union in Virginia, a city of slightly over 10,000 people on the range,[1] and helped the miners to coordinate strike actions and write a list of demands to the mining companies.
[4] Many lumber workers in the area also worked in mining during the summer months,[4] and in late 1916, a significant number of lumberjacks had been involved in the miners' strike and were subsequently blacklisted by those companies.
[17] By 1916, due to a series of small-scale but effective strikes and an increase in demand for grain in Europe caused by World War I, the AWO successfully helped workers achieve higher wages, and their membership grew to about 20,000 by year's end.
[17] In late 1916, the AWO (which at the time was headquartered along Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis) sent job delegates into the lumber camps in northern Minnesota.
[8] Beaton was a popular leading member of Local 490 due to his fiery oratory and militant stance on issues regarding strike action.
[8] Some of the more militant unionists such as Beaton viewed the deal as a sellout by the IWW, and acting without direct approval from the national union, they began to prepare for a strike.
[18] On December 24, several dozen organized millworkers met with Beaton at the Finnish Socialist Hall and drafted a list of demands to be submitted to the mill operators.
[19] Despite this, the meeting with mill management went as planned on December 26,[19] and Jacobson reluctantly agreed to officially sanction the possible strike action.
[19] During their meeting, Beaton also stated that, if their demands were not met, lumberjacks would also go on strike in an act of solidarity, though Rogers dismissed that possibility.
[19] Shortly after the meeting, Rogers hired a large number of guards for the mill and requested St. Louis County Sheriff John R. Meining to deputize them, which he did.
[19] At the same time, Beaton and Jacobson organized a "flying squad" of about a dozen men to go to the logging camps throughout the area to spread the word of the strike to the AWO job delegates and convince the lumberjacks to stop working as well.
[15] The IWW organizers had worked with individuals who were familiar with the conditions on the logging camps and had created a list of demands for the lumberjacks as well, which included no discrimination against union members, a 9-hour workday, a $10 per month pay increase (equivalent to $280 in 2023[11]), a minimum wage of $40 per month (equivalent to $1,100 in 2023[11]), negotiable salaries, better food, and improved sleeping, toilet, and cleaning facilities.
[4][24] That same day, men from the flying squad left Virginia en route to International Falls to attempt to recruit the lumberjacks, with many of the camps lying between these two cities along the logging railroads.
[20][25] The men boarded trains along the logging railroads and traveled to nearby towns, such as Bemidji, Gemmell, International Falls, and Virginia.
[3] In Koochiching County, public opinion against the lumber companies was so negative that the sheriff had to transport in people from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area to be deputized, which included two undercover spies from the IWW's Minneapolis office.
[27] In Koochiching County, the sheriff led a raid on the IWW hall in Gemmell, arresting many of the leaders and telling the striking lumberjacks to either return to work or leave the town.
[28] While the leaders were released a week later due to a lack of charges against them, the raid had the effect of scattering the strikers and disrupting the strike in the county.
[30] Faced with the prospect of arrest, many lumberjacks in the city left that day, departing by train to either Duluth or Minneapolis–Saint Paul,[30] with some others leaving Minnesota entirely.
[20] Many strikers struggled to subsist off of the small strike pay offered by the IWW, and many began to find work elsewhere as the labor dispute continued.
[34] On February 1,[31] what was left of the IWW leadership in northern Minnesota met in Duluth and officially announced an end to the strike.
[7] While the strike was primarily a failure for the IWW,[35] Local 490 was able to claim a partial victory based on improved conditions for lumberjacks on logging camps.
[36] According to academic Ahmed White in a 2022 book, these hearings showed that the IWW had not been engaged in violent activities in the time preceding the strike actions and exposed corruption and use of violence by the lumber and mining companies and local public officials.
[34][38] That same month, agents from the United States Department of Justice launched several raids on IWW offices, including those in Duluth, Minneapolis, and other cities in the Mesabi Range, to gather evidence for use against the organization.
[34] Law enforcement agencies in the state later used similar techniques that they had applied to the IWW to target war dissenters and pacifists, as well as other left-leaning groups such as the Nonpartisan League.
[41] Discussing the impact of the strike in a 1971 article, historian John E. Haynes wrote that, "The resolution of that strike helped redefine the boundaries of permissible political and economic dissent in Minnesota, virtually erased the specter of strong IWW influence on the iron range, and served as a precedent for the state's treatment of dissenters during World War I".
