Transcript Challenges to Big Business: Henry George: Progress and

Challenges to Big Business:
Henry George:
Progress and Poverty
Edward Bellamy:
Looking Backward
Socialism
 1870’s
Socialist Labor Party
 By 1901 American Socialist Party
 By 1912 All three parties
denounced Socialism
Unions
 First
real labor victory in American
History:
 Shoe workers in Lynn, Mass.
 10,000 walked off of the job and
demanded:
 Wage increase & union recognition
1866 The National Labor Union
 Founder:
Sylves
 Included many reform groups
 Excluded women
 640,000 members at peak
 Died with the Panic of 1873
1869 Knights of Labor
Secret organization at first under Stephens
 1878 Powderly took it out in the open
 Open to all EXCEPT professionals
 Short term goals: 8 Hour Day, end child
labor
 Long term goal: replace wages with a
cooperative system
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Knights of Labor Continued
By 1886 700,000 members
 1880’s unsuccessful strikes
 Became associated with violence, anarchy
 No public sympathy
 Government sided with big business
 By 1890 down to 100,000 then died
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The AFL
Skilled Labor
 Founder: Gompers
 Goals were political; not social:
 8 Hour Day
 Higher Wages
 Better conditions
 Equal pay for women (why?)
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AFL sponsored legislation for:
 Abolition
of child labor
 Restriction of immigration
 Restriction of the use of
injunction in labor disputes
The Strikes
 1886
Haymarket Square Riots
(Chicago)
 1892 The Homestead Strike
(Penn.)
 1894 The Pullman Strike
(Chicago)
No public sympathy
 Unions
will become associated
with anarchy
 Collective
bargaining sounded
communistic
May 1,1886 Haymarket Square Riots
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5-1-1886 The AFL called for a national strike
for an 8 hour day
The day before, 4 strikers were killed during a
strike outside of the McCormick Harvesting Co.
May 1st A bomb was thrown into a very large
protest/gathering
7 policemen killed, 67 others injured
Police fired into the crowd, 4 more killed
Haymarket Square Continued
 Local
anarchists were rounded up
 One was executed
 1892 liberal Illinois governor, Altgeld,
pardoned the others who were still in
jail
1892 The Homestead Strike
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Carnegie Steel Plant in Pennsylvania
Carnegie and plant manager, Frick, hated unions
At Homestead plant: The Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers Union
was affiliated with the AFL
1890-92 serious wage cuts
1892 another wage cut and denied the union’s
right to negotiate
Homestead Strike Continued
Workers occupied plants
 Pinkerton’s called in to remove strikers and
to protect scabs
 Pinkerton’s approached by river
 Workers poured oil into the river and set it
on fire
 All hell broke loose
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Homestead continued
8,000 National Guard sent to protect Steel
plant and replacement workers
 Frick was shot and wounded
 Public opinion against strikers
 By 1891 down to 24,000 members
 By 1901 less than 7,000
 AFL just barely survived
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1894 The Pullman Strike
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Winter 1892-93 Pullman Company cut wages by
25%
Did not reduce rents, store prices in its town
1893 Eugene Debs organized the American
Railway Workers Union (ARU)
Called for a nation-wide strike against Pullman
Co. in July of 1894
60,000 walked off of the job
Pullman Strike continued
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Illinois Governor Altgeld sympathized with
strikers and would not interfere on behalf of
Pullman Co.
Cleveland sent his Attorney General, Olney
Olney placed a mailbag on the train and charged
strikers with violation of the Sherman Anti-trust
Act
Big battle in Chicago
Pullman Strike continued
 Injunction
issued
 Cleveland sent federal troops
 Eugene Debs jailed
 Converted to Socialism (Helen Keller)
 Ran for president for the Socialist
Party 5 times
The Molly McGuires 1865-77
 Irish
coal miners in Penn
 Destroyed mining co. property
 Killed mine superintendents
 Infiltrated by Pinkertons
 19 strikers executed in the end
1905 The IWW
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Big John Haywood
Militant
The Wobblies
Organized miners, immigrants, itinerant farm
workers
Violent
Government repression, deportation
ALSO…
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The Women’s Trade Union League:
worked to improve working conditions for
women and children
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National Consumers’ League: worked for
above at the state level
Federal Reform Attempts
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): every
contract, combination, or conspiracy in
restraint of trade is illegal
 Was intended to restrain the power of
monopolies
 BUT was more often used against strikers
(Pullman) & NOT against monopolies
(E.C. Knight case & 14th Amendment)
Another Federal Reform Attempt:
The Interstate Commerce Act (1887):
 said RR rate discrimination was illegal
 and established the ICC: a 5-member nonpartisan board to take RR’s to court for
violations of the ICA
 BUT also did not work: rebates, the ICC,
and the Court