Transcript Industrialization and Workers Effects of Industrialization Ch. 6.3

Industrialization and
Workers
Effects of Industrialization
Ch. 6.3
The Growing Work Force
Increase in immigrants:
14 million new immigrants to the U.S. between
1860 and 1900
From 1860-1910 the US population jumped from
31.4 million to 91.9 million.
Over this span of forty years the population tripled
in size.
Contract Labor Act (1864)
Immigration was encouraged by the federal
government
Employers made contracts with immigrants in
exchange for passage to the U.S.
The Growing Work Force
• 8-9 million Americans moved to
cities during the late 1800s due to
poor conditions and struggles on
farms.
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– 46% of the U.S. population lived in
urban areas.
– Cities stretched to accommodate
these millions and deteriorated in the
process.
Factory Work
 Most laborers worked 12
hrs. a day six days a week.
 1868 Federal employees
granted eight-hour work day
 but this didn’t apply to
private industry
Factory Work
 Piecework: A system where workers were
paid not by the time worked but by what
they produced.
 Most of this type of work was done in
sweatshops.
 A shop where employees worked long hours,
at low wages, under poor working conditions
Factory Work
Increasing Efficiency  Fredrick Winslow Taylor Goal to increase productivity to increase profits but
sometimes led to layoffs.
Division of Labor  factory workers performed one small task, over and over,
and rarely saw the finished product.
 Caused workers to be disconnected from the finished
product and
 Owners saw their employees as “parts” and did not
interact with them as much.
Factory Work
• The Work Environment
– Workers were ruled by the
clock
– Discipline was strict
– Workplaces were not always
safe--noise, poor lighting and
ventilation were challenges.
– Still offered better pay and
more opportunities than other
jobs.
– The practice of child labor
came under attack [Jacob Riis]
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Working Families
• In the 1880’s children made
up more than 5% of the
industrial labor force.
• Children’s wages often
supplemented the family
income and some left school
to work.
• Families in need relied on
private charities as the
government did not provide
public assistance.
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The Great Strikes
Ch. 6.4
Gulf Between Rich and Poor
In 1890 the richest 9% of Americans held
about 75% of the wealth.
Socialism gained popularity
An economic and political philosophy that favors
public instead of private of the means of
production.
Wealth should be distributed equally to everyone.
The wealthy saw this as a threat to their fortunes,
politicians saw it as a threat to public order.
The Rise of Labor Unions
The Knights of Labor
 Hoped to organize all working men
and women, skilled and unskilled
into a single union and recruited
African Americans.
 They fought for:
 Equal pay for equal work, and 8-hour
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workday and an end to child labor
 Sought to help their members
through political activity and
education
 Sponsored first Labor Day on
September 5, 1882
The Rise of Labor Unions

American Federation of Labor
– The AFL was a craft union
– Hoped to organize only skilled workers in a network of
smaller unions each devoted to a specific craft.
– Women and African Americans were generally excluded.
– Focused mainly on issues of workers’ wages, hours and
working conditions.


Used economic pressure against employers-strikes and
boycotts.
Collective bargaining:
– the process in which workers negotiate as a group with
employers.
The Rise of Labor Unions
The Wobblies
• Founded by those who
opposed the AFL’s policies
• Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW)
• A radical union focused on
unskilled workers and
included many socialists.
• Many of their strikes were
violent
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The Rise of Labor Unions
• Reaction of
Employers
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 They generally disliked
and feared unions
 Took measures to stop
unions
 Forbid union meetings
 Firing union organizers
 Sign “yellow dog”
contract
 Refuse to bargain
collectively.
Railroad Workers Organize
 The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
 Railway workers protested unfair wage cuts and unsafe working
conditions.
 The strike was violent and unorganized.
 President Hayes sent federal troops to put down the strikes.
 From then on, employers relied on federal and state troops to repress
labor unrest.
 Debs and the American Railway Union
 At the time of the 1877 strike, railroad workers mainly organized into
various “brotherhoods,” which were basically craft unions.
 Eugene V. Debs proposed a new industrial union for all railway workers
called the American Railway Union (A.R.U.).
 The A.R.U. would replace all of the brotherhoods and unite all railroad
workers, skilled and unskilled.
The Haymarket Riot
Haymarket, 1886
 On May 1, groups of workers mounted a national
demonstration for an eight-hour workday.
 On May 3, police broke up a fight between strikers and scabs.
(A scab is a negative term for a worker called in by an
employer to replace striking laborers.)
 Union leaders called a protest rally on the evening of May 4 in
Chicago’s Haymarket Square.
 A group of anarchists, radicals who oppose all government,
joined the strikers.
 At the event, someone threw a bomb that killed a police officer.
 The riot that followed killed dozens on both sides.
 Investigators never found the bomb thrower, yet eight
anarchists were tried for conspiracy to commit murder. Four
were hanged.
Haymarket Strike
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Strikes Rock the Nation
•
Homestead 1892
– In 1892, Andrew Carnegie’s
partner, Henry Frick, tried to cut
workers’ wages at Carnegie
Steel.
– The union called a strike and
Frick called in the Pinkertons.
– The union called off the
Homestead Strike after an
anarchist tried to assassinate
Frick.
– Even though the anarchist was
not connected to the strike, the
public associated his act with
rising labor violence.
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Strikes Rock the Nation
Pullman, 1894
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– Eugene Debs instructed strikers
not to interfere with the nation’s
mail.
– Railway owners turned to the
government for help. The judge
cited the Sherman Antitrust Act
and won a court order
forbidding all union activity that
halted railroad traffic.
– Court orders against unions
continued, limiting union gains
for the next 30 years.
Labor Unions Changed Big Business!
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