Transcript Labor Unions and Industrialization

Chapter 5 – “Industrialization”
The BIG Picture!

Low wages, long hours and
difficult working conditions
caused resentment among
workers and led to efforts to
organize unions…

Workers began to form unions
to fight for better wages and
working conditions but had few
successes…

The Knights of Labor, AFL,
IWW and ARU fought for both
skilled and unskilled workers!
Labor Union Membership - 1867
American Federation of Labor
Various Independent Labor
Unions
Total Membership: 444,000
Labor Union Membership - 1914
American Federation of Labor
Various Independent Labor
Unions
Total Membership: 2,647,000
Working in the U.S.

Machines were replacing skilled labor…
 Skilled Laborers – higher wages
 Un-skilled Laborers – few skills, lower wages

Working conditions unhealthy & dangerous

By 1900…
 $.22 per hour, 60 hours per week
 675 deaths PER WEEK
*** To improve working conditions – workers attempted to
organize into Unions! ***
Early Unions in the United States

Trade Unions protected craft
workers…
 Machinists, stonecutters,
shoemakers, printers; “skilled
workers”

By 1873, 32 national trade
unions in the U.S…

Industrial Unions begin to
unite workers across an entire
industry (1860s and on…)
 Example: American Railway
Union, Eugene Debs
Industry’s Opposition to Unions

Employees would use antiunion methods to prevent
“organizers” from being
hired…
 “Yellow-Dog Contracts”
 “Blacklists”
 “Lockouts”
 “Strikebreakers” or “Scabs”
Political and Social Opposition to Unions

“Laissez-faire” approach
extended to ALL aspects of
industry…
 No laws protected workers or
their right to “organize”

U.S. courts ruled that
“strikes were conspiracies
in restraint of trade”

Americans were suspicious
of Labor Unions…
 Associated them with
immigrants, revolution,
anarchy and MARXISM
Marxism, Socialism and the IWW

Karl Marx and Marxism spread to
the U.S., 1860s
 Exploitation of the working class
(proletariat), class struggle, revolution!

Some unionists turned to
Socialism:
 Government control of business and
property…
 Equal distribution of wealth among all
citizens… (socialist society)

The Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW), Wobblies, was one
such socialist union!
Labor
problems in
the U.S.
Immigration
from Europe
Marxism,
Anarchism
Anti-Union,
Immigration
Historical Struggles In “Organizing”
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

United States’ first national
labor protest! (wage cuts)
○ Workers strike – halt service…
○ 80,000 workers, 11 states

U.S. Federal judge:
 “A strike or other unlawful
interference with the trains will be a
violation of the United States law,
and the court will be bound to take
notice of it and enforce the penalty”

President Rutherford B.
Hayes…
 Federal troops to Baltimore,
Pittsburgh, Philly, Illinois, Missouri
West Virginia
Baltimore, MD
Pittsburgh, PA
Effects of the Great Railroad Strike

Anti-Union effects:
 Immigrants, Marxists and
Anarchists were
blamed…
 States passed anti-union
and anti-conspiracy
laws…
 Anti-union sentiment
grew!

Pro-Union effects:
 Unions grew after
incident…
 Unions became more
organized…
 Strikes increased!
The Knights of Labor

Created in 1869…
 First NATIONAL
“industrial union”
(ALL workers, too!)

Fought for:
1.
2.
3.
4.

8 hour work day
Equal pay for women
End to child labor
Worker owned factories
Used boycotts and
arbitration… NOT
strikes!
Let’s look at
historical struggles
in the LABOR
MOVEMENT…
FIRST, what was the
“bread and butter”
issue for labor
unions?
1.) The Haymarket Riot of 1886

Labor leaders continued to
push for change…
 May 4, 1886 – 3,000 people
gathered at Chicago’s
Haymarket Square to protest
police treatment of striking
workers

A bomb exploded near the
police line – killing 7 officers
and several workers…

Union leaders and radicals
were arrested and executed
for the crime!
 “unions dominated by dangerous
radicals”
2.) The Homestead Steel Strike of 1892

Even Andrew Carnegie could
not escape a workers strike!

Henry Clay Frick proposes
20% wage cut…
 Workers picket and surround
factory
 Carnegie hired Pinkerton
Detectives to guard the plant
and allow scabs to work…

Detectives and strikers clashed
– 3 detectives and 9 strikers
died!

The National guard restored
order – “Scabs” returned to
work…
3.) Pullman Railroad Strike of 1894

Pullman Palace Car Company
– Pullman, Illinois (Chicago)

1893, cut wages – but did not
cut rent, food prices, etc.
 “Company scrip”


Pullman, Illinois
Eugene V. Debs, ARU
ARU workers boycotted
Pullman cars… but, railroad
managers are tricky! (U.S.
Mail)
 Grover Cleveland sends in
troops!
New Unions Emerge in the United States

The Knights of Labor
had fallen apart after the
Haymarket Riot…

The American
Federation of Labor
(AFL), 1886 ***

Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW), 1905
 Labor union with an
emphasis on Socialism

American Railway
Union (ARU), 1893
Samuel Gompers, AFL

Began working as a cigar
maker at the age of 10!

1877, became president of the
Cigar Makers Union…

Stayed away from politics,
socialism (early on)…
 Focused on LABOR issues!

1886, creates the AFL…

“Show me a country in which
there are no strikes and I will
show you that country in which
there is no liberty!”
The Rise of the American Federation of
Labor (AFL), 1886

Longest lasting labor union in
the U.S. (still today)

FEDERATION of various
trade unions…
 Cigar-makers, shoemakers,
carpenters, etc.
 ONLY skilled workers and NO
diversity! (problems? YUP!)

“Bread and Butter” goals:
 Higher wages, shorter hours and
better working conditions
 Stayed away from politics…
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW),
1905

Founded as opposition to AFL!

Socialists, Anarchists and
radicals, Chicago…

“An injury to one is an injury to
all”
 IWW goal: overthrow the working
class!

Organize into one big union –
skilled and un-skilled!

Advocated “workplace
democracy”
Women begin to “Organize”

Although women were barred
from most unions, they did
organize behind powerful
leaders such as Mary Harris
Jones…

She organized the United
Mine Workers of America,
1890
 Mine workers gave her the
nickname, “Mother Jones”

Pauline Newman organized
the International Ladies
Garment Workers Union at
the age of 16!