The 'Bullpen' at the Roslyn Mines
When the Northern Pacific Railroad imported scab labor to break a strike in 1888, the local Democratic convention issued a blistering condemnation of the 'armed police' used to coerce workers.
J. Hamilton Lewis of King offered the following resolutions, which were passed: Be it further resolved, That the Democratic party of Washington Territory, in convention assembled, do most severely denounce as unjust, harsh and tyrannical the methods adopted and the course pursued by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in this territory, of importing subsidized contract labor to take the place of and usurp resident working men; and we do heartily deprecate and denounce as infamous and outrageous the tactics used by said Northern Pacific Railroad company in stationing armed police in and about the mines and other places where labor is employed, to menace and coerce the laboring men, and we do appeal to the people of Washington Territory to openly join us in denouncing and deprecating this high handed and infamous policy.
“We do heartily deprecate and denounce as infamous and outrageous the tactics used by said Northern Pacific Railroad company in stationing armed police in and about the mines.”
The 1888 Roslyn labor struggle over contract labor and imported workers echoes contemporary debates about gig economy platforms and labor precarity. Even over a century ago, the tension between concentrated corporate power and the rights of resident workers was a defining conflict in the Pacific Northwest.
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