Labor Conditions and Impending
Labor Union Strikes
Essential Question:
After reading through the Shop girl
stories, formulate a description of
working conditions these women faced,
then determine what it is they are
trying to convey in their writings.
Unsafe Working Conditions
– Steel Mills required 7 day workweeks
– Seamstresses worked 12 or more hours/day, 6 days a
week
– No one entitled to vacation, sick leave, unemployment
compensation, or reimbursement for injuries suffered
on the job
• In 1882 and average of 675 laborers were killed in workrelated accidents each week!
– Wages were so low that everyone in the house had to
work to make enough money to eat
• Between 1890 and 1910 the number of women working for
wages doubled from 4-8 million
• 20% of the boys and 10% of girls under age 15 held full-time
jobs
Read the accounts written by sweat shop workers
How much were they paid?!
• In 1889 – Guesses?
– As low as 27 cents for a child’s 14 hour day
– Women earned an average of $267 a year
– Men earned an average of $498 a year – twice as
much as women
– Andrew Carnegie made $23 million – with no
income tax
• What do you think the workers could do to
improve their situation?
Early Labor Organizing
• In 1866 the first large-scale labor union was
formed, the National Labor Union (NLU)
– Membership grew to 640,000
– In 1868 they persuaded Congress to legalize an 8
hour day for government workers
• The Colored National Labor Union was created
out of the refusal to admit blacks into the NLU
• In 1869, Uriah Stephens founded the Noble Order
of the Knights of Labor
– They focused on individual needs whereas the
previous unions focused on workers as a whole
– Motto – An injury to one is the concern of all
Two Major Types of Unions
1. Craft Unionism –
– Included skilled workers from one or more trades
– Samuel Gompers lead the Cigar Makers’
International Union to join with other craft unions
in 1886
– The American Federation of Labor (AFL) with
Gompers as their leader used strikes as a major
tactic winning them higher wages and shorter
workweeks
– From 1890-1915
• Wages rose from $17.50 to $24
• Average workweek fell from 54.5 hrs to just under 49 hrs
2. Industrial Unionism
• Included all laborers of a specific industry,
skilled and un-skilled
• Eugene V. Debs formed the American Railway
Union (ARU)
• In 1894 they won a strike for higher wages
• Their membership because of this climbed to
150,000
Strikes Turn Violent
• The Great Strike of 1877 was the country's
first major rail strike
– Spawned violence that briefly paralyzed the
country's commerce and led governors in ten
states to mobilize 60,000 militia members to
reopen rail traffic.
– The strike would be broken within a few weeks,
but it helped set the stage for later violence in the
1880s and 1890s, including the Haymarket Square
bombing in Chicago in 1886, the Homestead Steel
Strike near Pittsburgh in 1892, and the Pullman
Strike in 1894.
The Haymarket Affair
• May 4, 1886
– 3,000 people gather together at Chicago’s Haymarket
Square to protest police brutality
– Once police arrive, someone (unknown still today)
tossed a bomb into the police line
– Police opened fire
– Seven officers and several workers died
– 3 speakers and 5 other radicals were charged with
inciting a riot
• All 8 were convicted – 4 were hanged, 1 committed suicide
in jail
The Homestead Strike
• In June 1892 Carnegie Steel Plant president,
Henry Frick announced he was going to cut
wages of workers
– On the 29th the workers went on strike
– Frick calls in the Pinkerton Detective Agency to
keep the strike under control, and he replaced
striking workers – infuriating strikers
– Unclear as to how, but a battle ensued
• 3 detectives and 9 workers died
– The National Guard had to be called in to stop the
fighting
The Pullman Company Strike
• In 1893, Pullman laid off more than 3,000 to 5,800
employees
• Also reduce the wages of the remaining staff by 2550% - but DID NOT cut cost of employee housing
• In 1894, Eugene Debs asked for change, but was
refused by Pullman
– The ARU began boycotting Pullman trains
– Pullman calls in strikebrakers and thing turned violent
– The President Grover Cleveland had to call in federal
troops
– Debs was jailed and Pullman fired most of his workers and
blacklisted the rest
Women Organize
• Although they were barred from unions,
women organized behind powerful leaders
– Demanded better working conditions
– Equal pay for equal work
– End to child labor
• Most prominent was Mary Harris Jones
– Supported the “Great Strike”
– Endured death threats and was jailed for
supporting minor workers strikes – was given the
nickname “Mother Jones”
30 Million Children March
• In 1903, to expose child labor cruelties, she
lead 80 million children on a march to the
home President Theodore Roosevelt
– These children had hideous injuries from labor
accidents
• This powerful march influenced the passing of
child labor laws
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
• It is no surprise that the government and business
owners had to reassess the safety of their factories
to prevent something like this from happening
again.
Labor Conditions and Impending
Labor Union Strikes
Essential Question:
After reading through the Shop girl
stories, formulate a description of
working conditions these women faced,
then determine what it is they are
trying to convey in their writings.