Transcript Industrialization and Workers
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.