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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 4-90_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 12/5/12 9:38 AM Page 27 identified union organizers and members, advised management of union plans and the possibility of strikes, obtained positions of leadership to influence union policies and encouraged members to be more favorable to management. Through studying the activities of Riddell, and other undercover agents, it is possible to analyze the character and methods of union spies and the result of their actions in Utah and neighboring states.5 Such a dramatic increase of pr ivate detectives throughout the nation was evidence of a massive breakdown of unity and trust among individuals, employers and employees, business colleagues, and government leaders and their constituents. There were James McParland, a spy for the several reasons for this erosion of mutual Pinkerton Agency, infiltrated the confidence—enormous economic growth Molly Maguires, a secret society and expansion of mass markets, migration of of Irish coal miners in workers from rural areas to big cities, increased Pennsylvania in the 1870s. He European immigration, corruption in business later became head of the and government, and huge technological agency’s Denver office. developments that changed the nature and pace of the miners’ work.6 The technological advancements, such as compressed air drills, often decreased the number of workers needed and demoted experienced miners to muckers or shovelers, reducing their pay from $3.00 to $2.50 per day. The innovative equipment and procedures, if they were improperly 5 Friedman, The Pinkerton Labor Spy, 1; Lukas, Big Trouble, 83. Some labor spies also reported on problems in the work environment such as timbers that were in bad shape or a shortage of drills. They also evaluated the mine supervisors and noted when they were bad-tempered or uncivil to the miners. See Katherine G. Aiken, Idaho’s Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of a Great Mining Company, 1885-1981 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 51. 6 Lukas, Big Trouble, 84; Ben E. Pingenot, Siringo (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1989), xix-xxi; Aiken, Idaho’s Bunker Hill, 11. 27 WIKIPEdIA LABOR SPIES |
