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I DREAMED I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me
“But Joe,” I says, “you’re ten years dead.”
“I never died,” says he…
Those of you whose mothers and fathers had a touch of the flower child in them might remember this song, sweetly sung by Joan Baez – so sweetly, in fact, that as a child I sang along to the first two verses, all the lyrics I ever knew, without understanding what they were about. It all sounded mysterious and romantic to me.
Joe Hill was born in 1879 and raised in Sweden – his original name was Joel Hägglund – and after his father’s early death, he and his eight siblings lived in poverty.
After surviving TB in his early twenties, Joe and his brother emigrated to the Promised Land, the USA. Here he became a migrant labourer, and eventually joined the Wobblies (the International Workers of the World, founded in 1905) and became a labour organiser.
He wrote songs that were popular with the workers – in one, The Preacher and the Slave, a parody of In the Sweet By and By, he coined the phrase ‘pie in the sky’ singing sarcastically: “There’ll be pie in the sky when you die.”
Joe Hill was convicted - in what labour leaders swore was a frame-up by ‘the Copper Bosses’, the men who owned the copper mines in which many workers laboured - of murder and executed by firing squad in 1915.
The evidence was circumstantial; two store owners had been murdered on the same night that Joe sought treatment for a gunshot to his lung, which he said had been sustained in a fight over a woman.
In a letter discovered many years later, the woman in question confirmed the rivalry and said Hill had told her that night, when she found him injured, that his rival had shot him – so it seems to have been a true story.
“Since Hill had told the IWW's ‘Big Bill’ Haywood (born in Utah in 1869) that he ‘didn't want to be caught dead in Utah’, his ashes went to IWW groups in every other state. Huge funeral demonstrations took place throughout the nation in answer to his admonition, ‘Don't mourn, organise!’ and Hill became labour’s martyr.”
And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe, "What they can never kill
went on to organise."
From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
Where working men defend their rights,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill!
As strike season moves into high gear, once again the letters flood into the newspapers and the country-club voices of economists and executives and business commentators are heard on radio and TV.
They make it sound as though union activity is single-handedly responsible for the state of the economy, the price of gold, the sad lack of foreign direct investment, the high unemployment rate.
I always find myself thinking of the history of the labour movement worldwide as these voices rabbit on. Just recently, I read a fascinating book, The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, focused on the science and literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
There was a stark reminder there of why it was necessary to organise: Humphrey Davy (later knighted for his invention of the Davy safety lamp that saved many miners’ lives) was horrified to see children as young as four at work in the mines, in incredibly dangerous circumstances.
It is thanks to organised labour, to the fights of people like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones) and Joe Hill, that we have an eight-hour day, paid sick leave, paid holidays, maternity and in some cases paternity leave, laws against child labour (at least in many countries of the world), laws about health and safety in the workplace, and the very right to of workers (from screenwriters to domestic workers to factory hands) to organise, the foundational right which gives workers a voice, and some clout.
These simple, basic conditions of employment are rights that were hard-won – many battles have not yet been fully won by a long shot; for example, children are still 22% of the workforce in Asia and 32% in Africa.
And organised labour continues to play a crucial role in shaping society – for example, joining forces with community movements to fight environmental injustice (pollution from industry that affects communities, for instance) or for the rights of migrant workers in an increasingly globalised world.
Of course, the traditional trade unions are in some trouble in various places, not least South Africa, in part because many have not adapted to the changing nature of work and of relationships with key role-players. But that should not lead to a call to get rid of organised labour.
As long as the power imbalances between those who employ and those who are employed is so vast, we need to preserve the right of workers – blue-collar and white-collar – to associate and organise.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
Alive as you or me
“But Joe,” I says, “you’re ten years dead.”
“I never died,” says he…
Those of you whose mothers and fathers had a touch of the flower child in them might remember this song, sweetly sung by Joan Baez – so sweetly, in fact, that as a child I sang along to the first two verses, all the lyrics I ever knew, without understanding what they were about. It all sounded mysterious and romantic to me.
Joe Hill was born in 1879 and raised in Sweden – his original name was Joel Hägglund – and after his father’s early death, he and his eight siblings lived in poverty.
After surviving TB in his early twenties, Joe and his brother emigrated to the Promised Land, the USA. Here he became a migrant labourer, and eventually joined the Wobblies (the International Workers of the World, founded in 1905) and became a labour organiser.
He wrote songs that were popular with the workers – in one, The Preacher and the Slave, a parody of In the Sweet By and By, he coined the phrase ‘pie in the sky’ singing sarcastically: “There’ll be pie in the sky when you die.”
Joe Hill was convicted - in what labour leaders swore was a frame-up by ‘the Copper Bosses’, the men who owned the copper mines in which many workers laboured - of murder and executed by firing squad in 1915.
The evidence was circumstantial; two store owners had been murdered on the same night that Joe sought treatment for a gunshot to his lung, which he said had been sustained in a fight over a woman.
In a letter discovered many years later, the woman in question confirmed the rivalry and said Hill had told her that night, when she found him injured, that his rival had shot him – so it seems to have been a true story.
“Since Hill had told the IWW's ‘Big Bill’ Haywood (born in Utah in 1869) that he ‘didn't want to be caught dead in Utah’, his ashes went to IWW groups in every other state. Huge funeral demonstrations took place throughout the nation in answer to his admonition, ‘Don't mourn, organise!’ and Hill became labour’s martyr.”
And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe, "What they can never kill
went on to organise."
From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
Where working men defend their rights,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill!
As strike season moves into high gear, once again the letters flood into the newspapers and the country-club voices of economists and executives and business commentators are heard on radio and TV.
They make it sound as though union activity is single-handedly responsible for the state of the economy, the price of gold, the sad lack of foreign direct investment, the high unemployment rate.
I always find myself thinking of the history of the labour movement worldwide as these voices rabbit on. Just recently, I read a fascinating book, The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, focused on the science and literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
There was a stark reminder there of why it was necessary to organise: Humphrey Davy (later knighted for his invention of the Davy safety lamp that saved many miners’ lives) was horrified to see children as young as four at work in the mines, in incredibly dangerous circumstances.
It is thanks to organised labour, to the fights of people like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones) and Joe Hill, that we have an eight-hour day, paid sick leave, paid holidays, maternity and in some cases paternity leave, laws against child labour (at least in many countries of the world), laws about health and safety in the workplace, and the very right to of workers (from screenwriters to domestic workers to factory hands) to organise, the foundational right which gives workers a voice, and some clout.
These simple, basic conditions of employment are rights that were hard-won – many battles have not yet been fully won by a long shot; for example, children are still 22% of the workforce in Asia and 32% in Africa.
And organised labour continues to play a crucial role in shaping society – for example, joining forces with community movements to fight environmental injustice (pollution from industry that affects communities, for instance) or for the rights of migrant workers in an increasingly globalised world.
Of course, the traditional trade unions are in some trouble in various places, not least South Africa, in part because many have not adapted to the changing nature of work and of relationships with key role-players. But that should not lead to a call to get rid of organised labour.
As long as the power imbalances between those who employ and those who are employed is so vast, we need to preserve the right of workers – blue-collar and white-collar – to associate and organise.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
