Part of the problem was when people were hurt or murdered by the company guards or enforcers you couldn't get back at them with standard damage suits in court, nor would the government enforce the statutes against murder and mayhem.
If perhaps everybody had been allowed to carry a pistol to work (currently one of our ambitions, right?) management might not have been so ambitious to do some of the things they did then.
The second amendment is there for a reason ~ USE IT.
In Logan County, WV (see the film Matewan) the sheriff and his deputies were the private army of the coal companies. When Chapin retired, he was given half ownership of a mine as a reward for his “service.”
My grandmother ran a boarding house on High Street in Logan and the sheriff would come by every now and then to check out the new arrivals in town. I know that after she asked if the sheriff had her husband killed, she would have pulled the trigger, but she had no firearms.