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This Day in Minnesota History

January 3, 1916

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Forty miners on the Mesabi Iron Range walk off the job at the start of a massive strike, coordinated by the ethnically diverse rank and file, with help from experienced organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Scab workers undermine the strike, and the strikers concede defeat after three and a half months. However, by December, Oliver Iron Mining Company, a subsidiary of US Steel, compromises with pay raises and other small reforms. The company would maintain its anti-union stance until 1943.

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