Labor Day: My Job is Killing Me

The phrase “my job is killing me” is largely hyperbolic these days, but that was not always so.  Back when linemen were first constructing and maintaining the power grid, somewhere near one in two died from injuries sustained at work.  Most of the linemen died as result of electrocution.  Closer to home, in Butte, Montana, 685 men perished in local mining accidents between 1906 and 1925.  Hundreds more died a slower death caused by “miner’s consumption,” a lung disease caused by inhaling quartz dust.

I think we can fairly say that such rates of work-related deaths would not be tolerated today.  Fact is they were tolerated by many company owners during the early days of the industrial revolution.  Change came only when the labor movement (mostly organized labor) pushed for apprenticeship training, better work conditions, and assured safety measures.

We can also thank early labor movements for the forty-hour workweek and eight-hour day we presently enjoy.  In August of 1866 the International Workingmen’s Association championed the demand for an eight-hour workday.

The push for better work conditions was often bloody.  In 1886, at Chicago’s Haymarket Square, at a rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day, a riot erupted and eventually took the lives of eleven people, including seven police officers.  Butte, Montana, also saw violence.  On August 1, 1917, Frank Little, a union organizer, was abducted from his boarding room, beaten, and hanged from a trestle on the edge of Butte.  On April 21, 1920, company guards opened fire on workers picketing the Neversweat mine.  Fifteen protesters were wounded.  Two men died from their wounds.

Today, I gave my thanks to those who pushed, those who sacrificed. 

Thanks to you, I live well.

--Mitchell Hegman

Note:  I have been a proud member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers since 1977.