On Sep 1, 10:09 am, ZerkonX X.net> wrote:

"These deaths occurred after a day-long fight between strikers and the
Guard. ... the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines,
destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the
Colorado National Guard...In leasing the tent village sites, the union
had strategically selected locations near the mouths of the canyons,
which led to the coal camps for the purpose of monitoring traffic and
harassing replacement workers. Confrontations between striking miners
and replacement workers, referred to as "scabs" by the union, often
got out of control, resulting in deaths."

The guard was called in only after -as was typically the case in this
period - "strike-related violence mounted", including in this instance
the apparent murder of a "replacement worker", i.e. a so-called
"scab". (I assume his name isn't listed on the monument).

"In response to the Ludlow massacre, the leaders of organized labor in
Colorado issued a call to arms, urging union members to acquire "all
the arms and ammunition legally available," and a large-scale
guerrilla war ensued, lasting ten days. In Trinidad, Colorado, UMW
officials openly distributed arms and ammunition to strikers at union
headquarters. Believing their women and children to have been
"wantonly slaughtered" by the militia, 700 to 1,000 inflamed strikers
"attacked mine after mine, driving off or killing the guards and
setting fire to the buildings." At least fifty people, including those
at Ludlow, were killed in ten days of fighting against mine guards and
hundreds of militia reinforcements rushed back into the strike
zone." (I assume no monument has been raised for these fifty people).

Btw, "In the end, the strikers failed to obtain their demands, the
union did not obtain recognition, and many striking workers were
replaced by new workers." The infamous "Homestead Strike" against
Carnegie Steel in the 1890's had a similar result.

So much for what unions accomplished for workers. More recently the
results have been perhaps even less beneficent, seriously affecting
the profitability and viability of entire industries. Perhaps that is
why union membership in this country remains near historic lows.

What we desperately need in this country is not a "Labor Day". It is
not "labor" which has produced the vast wealth of this country and its
extraordinary standard of living. We've always had "labor". Men have
plodded into fields eeking out a subsistence existence down through
the millenia. It is capitalism which we should be celebrating - which
has finally liberated men from this kind of existence.

Fred Weiss