LOUIS TIKAS – WITH GEORGE STAVROULAKIS – NEPHEW OF LOUIS TIKAS, ECONOMIST & AUTHOR JULY 1st 2024, ATHENS, GREECE IMMIGRANT GENERATION – AMERICAN GREEK LABOR HISTORY Louis Tikas, born Elias Anastasios Spantidakis in 1886 in Loutra, Crete, was a Greek immigrant and prominent labor union organizer in the United States. He became the main leader for miners at the Ludlow camp during the 1913–1914 Colorado Coalfield War, one of the most significant and violent labor strikes in American history. Tikas worked for the United Mine Workers of America and played a crucial role in organizing miners—mostly immigrants—against the harsh and inhumane conditions at the Colorado Fuel & Iron mines. On April 20, 1914, during the Ludlow Massacre, he was shot and killed by the Colorado National Guard as he tried to defend the strikers and their families, becoming a symbol and martyr for the American labor movement.