IWW Lumber Strike, 1916–1917

In December of 1916, mill workers at the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company went on strike, and lumberjacks soon followed. The company police and local government tried to crush the strike by running the lumberjacks out of town, but when the strike was called off in February, the company had granted most of the workers’ demands.

In the summer of 1916, miners on the Mesabi Range spontaneously went on strike. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) sent union organizers in support. Following the relative failure of the strike, many workers went into the lumber industry and began to organize a union there.

Over the previous ten years, the IWW had successfully organized lumber workers in the Northwest. As an industrial union (as opposed to a craft union), the IWW sought to organize all workers in the lumber industry, from lumberjacks to mill workers.

The Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company was the largest white-pine mill in the world.
The mill workers’ wages were between $2.50 and $3.00 per day. They worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week—the equivalent of eighty-four hours. In comparison, a common laborer in the city of Virginia earned the same amount in a fifty- to fifty-five-hour work week, working only six days. These inequalities gave the lumber workers in Northern Minnesota good reasons to organize.

After witnessing the power of collective action during the miners’ strike, workers in the lumber industry (many of whom were miners in the summer season) looked to the IWW to help them build a union. The IWW sent in “job delegates”—union workers who took jobs in the industry to help organize. There were also seasoned lumberjacks, including Jack “Timber Beast” Beaton, who took a leading role in building the union among his fellow workers. IWW leadership was divided over whether workers were ready to strike. The secretary-treasurer of local 490 (the miners’ union), Charles Jacobson, urged that they hold off, while Beaton pushed ahead.

On December 24, 1916, mill workers gathered at the Socialist Opera House to list their demands. They wanted a 25-cent-per-day wage increase, eight-hour shifts on the weekends, no work on Sundays, a shift change every week, and an end to union suppression.

They presented the demands to the company on December 26 and gave the management one day to respond before they would stop production. When no response was given by noon on December 27, around 700 mill workers decided to strike.

In the morning of Thursday, December 28, several hundred picketers went to the gates of the company; an estimated 1000 of the 1200 workers went on strike. As a result, one of the two main saw mills ceased to produce while the other only had sporadic production. As had happened with the iron miners’ strike, the company planned to bring in scabs (strikebreakers). However, if the lumberjacks joined the strike, there would be no wood for the mills.

Once the lumberjacks agreed to strike, their demands were a $10-per-month wage increase, nine-hour days, cleaner living conditions, and an end to discrimination against union employees. “Flying squads” were organized to spread word of the strike to all the logging camps in the region, thus causing more workers to walk off the job.

On Monday, January 1, the first lumberjacks walked out. One thousand left the camps first, followed by another thousand on Tuesday and more throughout the week. As a result, both large and small companies around northern Minnesota shut down.

In an effort to break the strike, the companies employed the police to arrest IWW leaders. These men were released when there was nothing to charge them with, but the workers struggled to continue without their leaders. In addition, villages and the town of Virginia passed laws banishing all IWW members. On January 2, lumberjacks were told to leave by 4:00 pm, January 3, or face arrest.

The strike was called off on February 1, but the union claimed a partial victory when conditions improved. Men received clean bedding, better food, and a wage increase larger than they demanded—they asked for $40 per month and received $45. Labor struggles continued in the region over the next several years, as did the repression of the IWW.