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Mesabi Miners: 2,000 March for Strike

By VVAW

In the November issue of The Veteran there was an article about the strike of the iron-ore miners in Minnesota and Michigan, particularly talking about how Vietnam vet miners were using some of the lessons they learned from the Vietnam War to struggle against the steel companies.

As of mid December, that strike goes on and is well on the way to being the longest strike in the history of the United Steelworkers Union. An attempt by the companies to divide the miners by offering a settlement which would have included 75% of the miners (and excluded the other 25%) was unanimously rejected by the Iran Range negotiation committee, following a march of 2000 miners and their families in Virginia, Minnesota, the heart of the strike.

Although the strike has been pretty much blacked out of the media, the fact that the companies had to offer to even 75% of the miners a settlement which met their demands, shows that the companies are hurting and that the united power of the miners is beginning to be felt in the pocketbooks of the bosses.