Salt Lake City, UT – It is an exciting time to be a labor organizer in Utah. In the past weeks, workers at the SunTrapp Bar in Salt Lake City struck against unfair labor practices, winning the love and support of the community, and nine Starbucks stores in the state have organized under Starbucks Workers United. Now, campus workers at both the University of Utah and Utah State University are flexing their organizational muscle as the United Campus Workers swells its ranks, building a wall-to-wall union of staff, graduate student workers, career instructors and faculty.

This upsurge in the labor movement in Utah and across the country is a perfect time to celebrate the life of Joe Hill, a labor activist executed in Salt Lake City 110 years ago this November 15, 1910. Framed up on a murder charge by the police, who were in league with the railroad bosses, Hill was put to death in Sugarhouse Prison despite mass nationwide opposition. A coalition of personalities from AFL President Samuel Gompers to Helen Keller opposed the execution, which was carried out by firing squad.

A Swedish immigrant, Hill was an itinerant worker and musician. As an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), songs like Everybody’s Joining It stirred workers to organization with a touch of relatable humor which earned Hill widespread movement fame and support:

The Boss is feeling mighty blue

He don’t know just what to do

We have got his goat, got him by the throat

Soon he’ll work or go starving.

Songs like Workers of the World, Awaken! written shortly before his death in 1915 demanded revolutionary change:

Workers of the world, awaken

Break your chains; demand your rights

AII the wealth you make is taken

By exploiting parasites.

Indeed, Hill was an activist who walked the walk with other organizers. He spoke to working people and delivered rousing speeches on their behalf as he traveled on freight trains, as many dispossessed workers did in the early 20th century. Salt Lake City had been a hotspot of union activity before Hill’s arrival here, as organized workers on a railroad construction site forced the bosses to concede food, bedding and a 25 cent pay raise after a strike.

The state of Utah killed Joe Hill. Hill’s now-famous last words before he was killed were, “I die like a true-blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.”

To organize despite setbacks and repression remains an important lesson for those interested in fighting injustice. Murdering Joe Hill only exposed the Utah courts and police as tools of the bosses, and he became even more famous in death than in life, his music and message reaching new generations and an even wider working-class audience.

People should heed this call to organize by getting involved in movements for change. Join and participate in your union or organize your workplace. Attend and organize protests against racist and reactionary political schemes.

All workers at the University of Utah and Utah State University are encouraged to join the UCWU.

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