SWBAT: Explain how government responded to
confrontations between labor and management
2
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1
HIPP these cartoons
with your partner:
 Pre-Civil War: labor unions local & for
skilled workers only (ex. Philadelphia
shoemakers, New York printers)
 Post-Civil War: rise in national labor
unions
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NATIONAL LABOR UNION (NLU)
 1866: 1st attempt to organize all workers in all
states (skilled & unskilled, agricultural & industrial)
 Leader: William Sylvis
 Gained 640,000 members in 2 years
 Goals: higher wages, 8-hour day, equal rights
for women & blacks, monetary reform & worker
cooperatives
 Victory: won 8-hour day for federal employees
 Lost support after a depression began in 1873 &
after the unsuccessful strikes of 1877
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KNIGHTS OF LABOR
 1869: 2nd national labor union began as a secret
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society in order to avoid detection by employers
Leader: Terence Powderly
1881: Opened membership to include blacks & women
Goals: abolition of child labor & abolition of
monopolies/trusts, settle labor disputes by through
arbitration, rather than strikes
Loosely organized  could not control local units
Grew rapidly in early 1880s, peak membership 730,000
Declined after Haymarket Riot in Chicago turned
public opinion against the union
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AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR (AF o L)
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1886: association of 25 craft unions
Concentrated on economic goals
Leader: Samuel Gompers
Goals: “Bread and Butter”; higher wages & improved
working conditions (directed unions of skilled workers
to walk out until employer agreed to negotiate new
contract through collective bargaining)
 1901: the nation's largest union with 1 million
members
 Did not achieve major successes until early 20th
century  still exists today!
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LOCKOUT: Closing the factory to break a labor
movement before it could get organized
BLACKLISTS: Names of pro-union workers
circulated among employers
YELLOW-DOG CONTRACTS: Workers told, as a
condition for employment, they must sign an
agreement not to join a union
PRIVATE GUARDS & STATE MILITIA: Called in
to put down strikes
COURT INJUNCTIONS: Obtained to stop strikes
With a surplus of cheap labor,
management held most of
the power in its struggles
with organized labor
 Strikers could easily be
replaced by bringing in
strikebreakers (“scabs”) who
were unemployed, desperate
for jobs
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 With your partner, analyze and discuss
the “Major Labor Strikes: 1877-1894”
 Similarities/Differences?
 How did the government respond?
 Result of each strike? Pattern?
 Finish this sentence:
 Increasing tensions between workers &
employers led to …
large, violent, often unsuccessful strikes
stopped by the Federal Government
Tensions increase
between workers
& owners
Gap between
rich & poor
Government sides
with business
owners, using army
to put down strikes
Major strikes
continue
Workers
organize
unions
Business
owners oppose
unions
Era of strikes begins
with Railroad Strike,
1877