LABOR HISTORY REVIEW!
Antebellum “Labor Movement”
• From Masters to Managers (Late 1700s to
early 1800s)
– Philadelphia’s Federal Society of Journeyman
Cordwainers (shoemakers) (1794-1806)
– Lowell Mills (1811-1840s)
• First major strike in 1834
– Formation of the Workingmen’s Party in New
York (1829)
– Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)
Modern Labor Movement
• Beginning of the Modern Labor Movement
(1865-1887)
– National Labor Union (1866)
– Knights of Labor (1869)
– American Federation of Labor (1886)
Modern Labor Movement
• Important Strikes
– Great Railroad Strike (1877)
• Rise of AFL
– Haymarket Bombings/Riot (1887)
The Great Railroad Strike
of 1877
Modern Labor Movement
• Post-Haymarket (1887-1910)
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
Homestead Strikes (1892)
Panic of 1893
Pullman Car Strikes (1894)
• Eugene Debs
• In re Debs (1895)
– Roosevelt and the Pennsylvania Coal Mines (1902)
– International Workers of the World (Wobblies) (1905)
• Big Bill Haywood
Management vs. Labor
“Tools” of
Management
“Tools” of
Labor
 “scabs”
 boycotts
 P. R. campaign
 sympathy
demonstrations
 Pinkertons
 lockout
 blacklisting
 yellow-dog contracts
 informational
picketing
 closed shops
 court injunctions
 organized
strikes
 open shop
 “wildcat” strikes
Modern Labor Movement
• Hard times for labor (1910-1935)
– Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)
– Bread and Roses Strike (Wobblies) (1911)
– Ludlow Massacre (1914)
– Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
– National War Labor Board (1918-1919)
– Boston Police Strike (1919)
– Sacco and Vanzetti/Palmer Raids/Red Scare
(1919-1920s)
Modern Labor Movement
• Slightly less hard times for labor (19351945)
– National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)
(1935)
– Flint, Michigan victory (1937)
– Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)
– National War Labor Board (WWII) (1942)
– CIO
Modern Labor Movement
• Decline of labor?
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Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
AFL-CIO merger (1955)
OSHA (1970)
Reagan and PATCO (1981)
Clinton and NAFTA (1995)
Bush and the Longshoremen Union (2002)
1945: 36% of American workers were unionized
2007: 12% of American workers were unionized