February 14, 1975

Violence erupted Jan. 20 at the Rosebud coal mine in Hanna, Wyo., when police attacked a picket line set up by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

In a scene reminiscent of union-busting drives decades ago, state police fired their weapons into the air and ordered the miners to lie face down on the ground or be shot.

Forty-four pickets were arrested and held in the Wyoming State Prison for 24 hours.

A court injunction limits the number of pickets to four, a ruling that the UMWA plans to appeal.

Rosebud miners have been threatened with firing if they do not report to work. Some have even been picked up by police at their homes, taken to the mine, and ordered to work.  
 

February 13, 1950

The action of the CIO United Steel Workers in sending $500,000 for relief of the coal miners is a welcome first step in labor's fight against Truman's Taft-Hartley attack on the mine workers.

This reflects not so much a whole hearted desire by Philip Murray to aid the miners as the mounting pressure of the CIO rank and file. They feel a deep sense of solidarity with the miners and know that a defeat for the UMW will open the way for an offensive against their own unions.

At the first threat of the use of the Taft-Hartley Law, all American labor should rise as one to fight this deadly menace to their rights and liberties. All that is needed is a signal from the AFL and CIO leaders. But that signal has been withheld.  
 
 
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