Industrialization and Workers

Ch 6, Sec 3 & 4

Factory Workers

• • • • Boom in workforce mid to late 1800s.

– Urbanization and large immigrant population.

10-12 hours/day, 6 days/week.

Paid by piecework – paid by number of completed products.

Worked in sweatshops – long hours, low pay, poor working conditions.

• • • Efficiency studies by Frederick Winslow Taylor led to division of labor.

– Production divided up into small parts, each person does on part over and over.

– Made businesses very efficient; low skill level, low pay.

Few safety measures in factories; hot, loud, dangerous.

Due to low pay, wives and children worked.

– 1 in 5 kids aged 10-16 was employed.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

• • •

Unions and Strikes

1890-Richest 9% of Americans held 75% of wealth.

– Led to resentment and anger.

Many began to support philosophy of Socialism.

– Public control of factors of production, not private.

– Wealth should be spread evenly to all.

Socialist ideas led to creation of labor unions.

• • Unions formed to help workers in hard times.

– Changed to become a way for workers to give demands to employers.

• Higher pay, shorter hours, better conditions, etc.

1869, Knights of Labor union formed to organize all into single union.

– Wanted equal pay for equal work (women, minorities), 8-hour workday, no child labor.

– Peaked at 700,00 members, then declined and disappeared in 1890’s.

• • • • 1886, Samuel Gompers founded American Federation of Labor (AFL).

– Craft Union – Only skilled workers in a network of smaller unions, each devoted to a specific craft.

Wanted better wages, hours, conditions.

Used strikes, boycotts, collective bargaining.

– Workers negotiate as a group with employers.

AFL was very effective and successful.

Samuel Gompers

• • • 1877, railroad workers struck to protest wage cuts and unsafe conditions.

– Destroyed railroad property, US president sent troops to restore order.

Eugene V. Debs organized the American Railway Union.

– Industrial union – workers from all crafts in a given industry.

Debs was opposed to violent strikes, preferred peaceful protests.

Eugene V. Debs Industrial Union

• • Employers disliked and feared unions.

Tried to stop unions by: – Forbidding union meetings.

– Firing union organizers.

– Forcing new employees to sign contracts promising not to join unions or strike.

– Refusing to collectively bargain.

– Refusing to recognize unions as workers’ representatives.

• • 1881-1900 – 24,000 strikes.

Haymarket Riot, 1886 – national protest for 8 hour workday led to strikes.

– Chicago-fight between strikers and scabs led to union protest in Haymarket Square.

– Someone threw a bomb and killed cops, led to open riot with dozens dead.

– Knights of Labor blamed.

– 4 anarchists hanged, 1 killed self, 3 let go.

• Homestead Strike, 1892 – Carnegie’s partner Henry Clay Frick tried to cut wages at Homestead, Pennsylvania mill.

– Led to huge strike.

– Frick sent in Pinkertons to break strike; gunfight, many killed.

– Anarchist Alexander Berkman tried and failed to kill Frick.

• Public opinion turned against strikers.

– Strike ended against workers 3 months after start.

Henry Clay Frick

Alexander Berkman

• Pullman Strike, 1894 – George Pullman built luxury railroad cars, and a town for his workers.

– 1893, cut wages 25%, kept rent and food prices same.

– Caused local union to strike.

• Pullman shut down factory, refused to bargain.

– ARU led nationwide Pullman strike, 260,000 workers.

• Blocked mail delivery, fed gov’t got involved.

– Citing Sherman Anti-Trust Act, railroads got court order to end strike, President Cleveland sent troops to enforce.

George Pullman

Strikers burned 600 boxcars.