Transcript Chapter 3 Lesson 4

IV. Unions
• Workers tried to form unions in the late 1800s
• Hoping to improve wages, hours, and working
conditions
• Business leaders worked with some unions
• Generally opposed others
• Strikes during this era sometimes led to violence
• Hurt union’s image and slowed their growth
Working in the United
States
• Why did workers try to form
unions in the late 1800s?
Working in the United
States
• Life for workers was
difficult
o Dull repetitive tasks
o Breathed in lint, dust and toxic
fumes
o Machines lacked safety devices
• Industrialism led to a
dramatic rise in the
standard of living
Working in the United States
• Average workers’
wages rose 50%
between 1860 -1890
• Uneven division of
wealth caused
resentment
• 1900 average wage:
22 cents per hour and
worked 59 hours a
week
Working in the United States
• Deflation – a decline in
the volume available
money or credit that
results in lower prices,
and therefore
increases the buying
power of money
• 1865 -1897 deflation
caused prices to fall
Working in the United States
• Increased buying
power
• Companies cut wages
• Late 1800s prices fell
even faster
• Workers resented
getting less money
• Needed unions to
bargain for higher
wages and better
conditions
Early Unions
• Two types of industrial
workers- craft and
common
• Craft workers were
o
o
o
o
o
Machinists
Iron molders
stone cutters
Shoemakers
printers
• Had special skills and
received higher wages
Early Unions
• Common workers
o Had few skills
o Received lower wages
• 1830s craft workers
form trade unions
• 1873 – 30 national
unions
• 3 largest
o Iron Molders International
o International typographical
Union
o Knights of St. Crispin;
shoemakers union
Opposition to Unions
• Employers had to
negotiate with unions
• Viewed unions as
conspiracies that
interfered with property
rights
• Business leaders opposed
industrial unions
• Industrial Union – an
organization of common
laborers and craft workers
in a particular union
Opposition to Unions
• Companies used
technique to prevent
union membership
o Sign oath or contract
o Hired detectives to identify
union organizers
o Workers who tried to organize
were fired
o Placed on a blacklist
Opposition to Unions
• Companies used
“lockouts” to break
existing unions
• Lockout – a company
tool to fight union
demands by refusing to
allow employees to
enter its facilities to
work
• If union called a strike
employers hired
replacements or
strikebreakers
Opposition to Unions
• There were no laws giving
workers rights to form
unions
• Or for owners to
negotiate with them
• Courts ruled strike
“conspiracies in restraint
of trade”
• Leaders could be fined or
jailed
• Restraint – the act of
limiting, restricting, or
keeping under control
Opposition to Unions
• 1800s unions thought to
be un-American
• Karl Marx argued that
capitalist society was a
struggle between
workers and owners
• Marx believed the
workers would
o Eventually revolt
o Seize factories
o Overthrow the government
Opposition to Unions
• Laborers supported Marx
• Few supported anarchism
• Anarchists believe society
does not need any
government
• 1800 anarchists
assassinated government
officials and set off
bombs across Europe
• Hope was to begin a
revolution
Opposition to Unions
• Tens of thousands of
Europeans headed to
America
• Anti immigrant feelings
were strong in America
• Became suspicious of
unions
• Used the courts, the
police and army to
crush and break strikes
Opposition to Unions
• How did the working
conditions encourage workers
to form unions in the late
1800s?
Opposition to Unions
• Working conditions were
often dangerous and
unhealthy, and workers
wanted unions to help them
gain a better work
environment.
Struggle to Organize
• What made it difficult for union
workers to create large
industrial unions?
Struggle to Organize
• Workers tried many
times to create large
industrial unions
• Confrontations with
owners led to violence
and bloodshed
The Great Railroad Strike
• Panic of 1873 was a
severe recession
• 1877 Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad
announced it was
cutting wages (third
time)
• Strike involved 80,000
workers
• First nationwide strike
The Great Railroad Strike
• President Rutherford B.
Hayes called it an
insurrection
• Took 12 bloody days for
police, state militias and
federal troops to restore
order
• 100 people were killed
• 100 million in railroad
property was destroyed
• Americans wanted more
peaceful means to settle
labor disputes
The Great Railroad Strike
• Strikers
o smashed equipment
o Tore up tracks
o Blocked rail service in several
cities
• Governors of several
states called out the
militia
• Gun battles between
the strikers and the
militia
The Knights of Labor
• Founded 1869
• Leader Terrence
Powderly opposed
strikes in favor of
boycotts and
arbitration
• Arbitration – settling a
dispute by agreeing to
accept the decision of
an impartial outsider
The Knights of Labor
• Powderly thought best
interests of both groups
must be considered
• Unlike other unions the
Knights welcomed
o Women
o African Americans
• Called for an
o
o
o
o
Eight hour day
Equal pay for women
No child labor
Worker owned factories
The Haymarket Riot
• 1886 supporters of eight
hour day called for a
strike
• May 3, Chicago police
open fire on picket line
• 3,000 people gather to
protest the shooting
• Someone threw a
bomb
• Police opened fire
• 170 injured 10
policemen killed
The Haymarket Riot
• Eight men arrested for
bombing
• Public anger resulted in
8 convictions
• 4 were executed
• Critics claimed
dangerous radical
dominated unions
• Lost strikes led to
decline in membership
and influence in the
Knights of Labor
The Homestead and
Pullman Strikes
• Summer of 1892 led to
bloodshed
• Steel mill owned by
Andrew Carnegie in
Homestead
Pennsylvania
• Managed by Henry
Clay Frick
o Anti union business partner
The Homestead and
Pullman Strikes
• Frick proposes to cut
wages 20%
• He then locked out
employees
• Pinkerton Detectives
brought in
replacements
• When Pinkertons and
strikebreakers
approached the plant
strikers resisted
The Homestead and
Pullman Strikes
• 1894 Pullman Palace
Car Company slashed
wages without lowering
rents in the company
town
• American Railway
workers refused to
handle Pullman Cars
• Railroad managers
arranged to have mail
cars attached
The Homestead and
Pullman Strikes
• Over the next 14 hours
they clashed
• Governor of
Pennsylvania sent in
the militia
• 4 months later the strike
collapsed
The Homestead and
Pullman Strikes
• President Cleveland
sent federal troops to
keep the mail coming
• Federal court issued an
injunction to halt the
boycott
• Injunction – a court
order whereby one is
required to do or to
refrain from doing a
specified act.
Struggling to Organize
• How did major strikes prevent
large industrial unions from
maintaining power and
influence?
Struggling to Organize
• Such strikes often turned
violent, and the reputation
of the unions suffered
New Unions Emerge
• How were the new industrial
unions different from the older
trade union?
New Unions Emerge
• Workers share same
complaints about
wages and hours
• Unskilled workers were
not represented by
unions
• New types of unions
emerged to support
these workers
The Rise of the AFL
• American Federation
of Labor (AFL)
• 1866 leaders of several
trade unions created it
• Samuel Gompers the
first president
• Held power until 1924
• Tried to focus on pure
and simple
o Wages
o Working hours
o Working conditions
The Rise of the AFL
• Had three main goals
o Tried to convince companies
to recognize unions and agree
to collective bargaining
o Pushed for closed shops
o Closed shop – an agreement in
which a company agree to
only hire union members
o Promoted 8 hour work day
The Rise of the AFL
• 1900 largest union with
500,000 members
• Represented less that
15% of non-farm
workers
• Most members were
white men
o Discriminated against African
Americans
o Only a few women were
admitted
The IWW
• 1905 International
Workers of the World
• Nicknamed Wobblies
• Wanted to organize by
industry
• Making distinction
between skilled and
unskilled laborers
• “The working class and
the employing class
have nothing in
common”
The IWW
• Should be one big union
• 1912 IWW led a successful
strike of 25,00 textile
workers
• Lawrence, Massachusetts
cut wages
• Companies reversed itself
after 10 week strike
• Many IWW strikes failed
• Radical philosophy
Women and Organized
Labor
• After Civil War female
wages rose
• 1900 women make up
18% of workforce
• Society’s ideas of what
constituted women’s
work
• Constituted – to
compose, make up, or
form
Women and Organized
Labor
• One third were
domestic servants
• One third teachers,
nurses, sales clerks,
clerical workers
• One third in garment
industry and food
processing
• Women paid less than
men for the same job
Women and Organized
Labor
• Assumed women were
helping the men
• Men needed higher
wages to support a
family
• Most unions excluded
women
• Mary Harris Jones
(Mother Jones)
Women and Organized
Labor
• 1900 Jewish and Italian
Immigrants worked in
clothing business in
New York
• Founded the
International Ladies
Garment Workers Union
(ILGWU)
• 1909 strike of 30,000
workers
o Won recognition of their union
o Better wages
o Benefits for employees
Women an Organized
Labor
• 1903 Mary Kenney
O’Sullivan and Leonora
O’Reilly, Jane Addams
and Lillian Wald
• Establish first national
association dedicated
to women’s labor issues
• The Women’s Trade
Union League (WTUL)
o
o
o
o
Pushed for 8 hour day
Minimum wage
No evening work for women
Abolition of child labor
Women and Organized
Labor
• Why did women need to from
their own trade unions?
Women and Organized
Labor
• Most of the existing trade
unions excluded women