The 74th anniversary of the 1937 Wilsonville Sit-Down Strike is
quickly approaching and merits attention. While many labor
actions are spurred by the struggle for better wages or working
conditions, this strike was set in motion for a different
reason. In his memoirs Jack Battuello recalls: “Whenever they
mechanized a mine with one type of machinery that would reduce
the working force, we’d simply took ‘em in our ranks and divided
whatever work remained. Day for day, hour for hour. … All these
years under the United Mine Workers and under the Progressives
we had unwritten agreement that …when one of these mines shut
down then the miners whose mine had shut down had a right to
divide work with the remaining three mines. And suddenly for
some reason that we never discovered the coal companies decided
they didn’t want to continue that system. And they refused to
let the Number 1 men whose mine was shut down – a division of
work in the other three mines.” Responding to layoffs caused by
the closure of Superior Mi