Who Polices the Strikers?
Everett labor leaders demand transparency after discovering private companies were deputizing their own strike-breakers as law enforcement.
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.
Organized labor of this city does not object to the authority of city officials to appoint special police where necessary. It does not object to industrial concerns securing police authority for regular watchmen. The union men will go the limit in aiding to preserve order. But organized labor does most strenuously object to the wholesale use of police power to whip into submission a body of men who are fighting for what they believe to be just and right. If the strikers had asked for police power to bully the men who had taken their jobs, the citizens would have been highly indignant. By what process of reasoning can it be considered right for an industrial concern to clothe its men with police authority and send them out to antagonize strikers under a flimsy pretext of protecting life and property? Had it not been for the trial of a picket last week, this might never have been brought to light. It brings a natural query: has a corporation rights and influence in this city not accorded to private citizens? There is a remedy for this condition and that is publicity. Make it incumbent on the city council to confirm all police appointments.
“Has a corporation rights and influence in this city not accorded to private citizens?”
This 1910 editorial highlights the recurring tension between private security forces and labor movements in the Pacific Northwest. The demand for transparency in how police powers are delegated to private entities mirrors modern ongoing debates regarding public oversight of security contractors.
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