one of the oldest, most profitable and notorious of mining companies, recently sold to freeport mcmoran for $26 billion dollars.
ever hostile to workers, phelps dodge spent over a century in a successful attempt beat the union down. it is estimated that pd spent multiples of the price of a reasonable compromise on wages and conditions to avoid being party to such a compromise. in 1917, the year that cleveland h. dodge, scion of the family and executive of the company, funded an edowment in his name for the betterment of humanity, his company coralled 1700 copper queen mine workers at gunpoint, loaded them on boxcars ankle deep in manure and "deported" them to the new mexico desert without food or water.
cleveland dodge, a founding member of ymca, told his pastor he couldn't have any of the huge profits generated by ww1 burning in his pocket and seeded his foundation with $5million. 1917 net profits for pd were $24million.
why are there enormous craters, pools of acid, tailings piles and slag heaps blighting the sonoran desert of arizona? phelps dodge.
by lexicali slim September 21, 2009
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