Successfully representing their members would go a long way to helping earn it back.
Generally though the Pinkerton's beating on union guys or the union guys dealing with scrabs resembles a gang war more than a "literal war"
I assume they were mentioning the regular use of the National Guard against strikers, like in the Ludlow Massacre.
That's the quaint history book narrative we like to think about in relation to the labor struggles of the 19th/20th century in the US. But the reality is that men, women and children were mowed down with machine guns and sniper fire. It was a struggle for life and death between two classes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
That seems more like "literal war" than a gang turf war.