SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Before becoming a "right-to-work" state, Utah executed one of the local labor movement's biggest icons.
Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant and singer-songwriter, moved to Utah in 1913. Shortly after his arrival, he would become the face of a national movement of "revolutionary unionism."
Utah becomes unionism's unofficial headquarters
With the first Labor Day holiday being celebrated in 1882, Utah's growing number of miners began to organize with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), otherwise known as "the Wobblies," according to historians.
With so many precious metal mining operations across the state, miners quickly dominated the labor movement in Utah.
Hill, a Wobbly himself, settled in a Swedish community in Murray and began working in Park City mines a f