Union Violence - Frameups

Frameups

A variation of the false flag operation is the frameup, in which operatives attempt to accomplish the same negative reaction, but aim for specific consequences more significant or damaging than mere bad publicity. During the Colorado Labor Wars, the Colorado National Guard had been called into the Cripple Creek Mining District to put down a strike. The occupation had apparently dissipated perceived threats from striking miners against mine properties, and Colorado National Guard leadership became concerned that the Mine Owners Association had not lived up to their agreement to cover the payroll of the soldiers during the deployment. About the middle of February, 1904, General Reardon ordered Major Ellison to take another soldier he could trust to secretly "hold up or shoot the men coming off shift at the Vindicator mine" in order to convince the mine owners to pay. When such violence occurred, it was most probable that the blame would be placed upon the union. However, Major Ellison believed that the miners took a route out of the mine that would not make ambush possible. Reardon ordered Ellison to pursue an alternative plan, which was shooting up one of the mines. In the dark of night, Major Ellison and Sergeant Gordon Walter fired sixty shots from their revolvers into the Vindicator and Lillie shaft house. The plan worked, and the mine owners paid up.

During the same strike, detectives attempted to frame union leaders for a plot to derail a train. A jury of non-union ranchers and timbermen unanimously found three accused union men "not guilty", and testimony during the trial pointed at a plot by the detectives.

Frameups in labor disputes sometimes swing public opinion one way or the other. During a strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, police acting on a tip discovered dynamite and blamed it on the union. National media echoed an anti-union message. Later the police revealed that the dynamite had been wrapped in a magazine addressed to the son of the former mayor. The man had received an unexplained payment from the largest of the employers. Exposed, the plot swung public sympathy to the union.