Roslyn Coal Strike: Company Threatens to Import Black Strikebreakers
As the 1894 coal strike drags on, Roslyn miners refuse a 20 percent pay cut. The company’s answer: import Black workers from Chicago to break the union, a move that would reshape the town.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
ROSLYN, July 27.—[Special.]—An active effort was made by some here this morning toward securing a new meeting of the miners and drivers to consider the matter of going to work on the terms proposed by the company, but the attempt was a failure. It is evident, from the expressed sentiment of the leading miners, that under no circumstances will the 20 per cent reduction be accepted. It was expected to hear from State Organizer Norton relative to the men on the west side going out in sympathy with the Roslyn miners, but no intelligence from him has been made public. It is generally known here that Mine Superintendent Harrison would not recognize nor treat with Norton as a representative of the miners under any conditions.
The announcement by the company that negroes would be brought in is treated by many simply as a bluff, or “sandy,” in coal camp parlance, but some seem to realize the seriousness of the situation and feel confident that General Manager Kangley is painfully in earnest. James Shepperson, a local negro who figured conspicuously in the importation of negro miners in 1889, left for the East six weeks ago and it is thought he has been busily engaged in locating the class of negro miners wanted. He is a man well equipped for that class of work, and it is given out that nothing but thoroughly practical miners will be engaged. The negroes imported in 1889 were collected in Chicago and wherever they could be secured, and many of them had never seen a coal mine previous to their arrival here. Their work in many instances was not satisfactory, and their places were supplied with white miners as rapidly as circumstances permitted. The management is credited with announcing, a couple of years ago, that if trouble arose again in Roslyn it would be made a negro camp and would be continued so in the future. It is calculated that the new miners will arrive about the first of next month. Last evening the Roslyn City band, composed of miners, went to Cle Elum and serenaded the United States regulars in camp there.
“Under no circumstances will the 20 per cent reduction be accepted.”
The 1894 Roslyn strike was a turning point for labor in Washington, and the threat to import Black strikebreakers exposed the fault lines of race and class that still shape debates over work and immigration. The company’s strategy—pitting workers against each other—remains a familiar tactic in modern labor disputes.
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