Labor In The Late 1800s
Labor Force Distribution
1870-1900
The Changing
American
Labor Force
Child Labor
Child Labor
Labor Unrest: 1870-1900
The Molly Maguires
(1875) Irish Workers
James
McParland
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
A Striker Confronts a
SCAB!
Tools of Management
• Scabs - workers hired to replace those who went
on strike
• Pinkertons – detectives hired to report on efforts
to unionize and to put a stop to it.
• Yellowdog Contracts - contracts a worker had to
sign to get a job in which he agrees NOT to join a
union
• Blacklisting – putting out negative information on
you so no other company will hire you
• Lockout – Businesses literally locked their doors
Cont
• Court Injunctions – court orders to return to
work
• Open shop- a business where no one had to
join a union and anyone could work- this is
the opposite of a “closed shop” where a
person MUST be a union member to work
there
Tools of Labor
• Sympathy demonstrations – other businesses
would walk off their jobs in support of a
striking union
• Closed Shops- businesses that required you
be a union member to get a job there
• Strikes- walking off your job and refusing to
work until management agrees to your
demands
Knights of Labor
Terence V. Powderly
The first organized labor union 1869
Knights of Labor
For skilled labor only
Knights of Labor trade card
Goals of the Knights of Labor
ù
Eight-hour workday.
ù
Workers’ cooperatives.
ù
Worker-owned factories.
ù
Abolition of child and prison labor.
ù
Increased circulation of greenbacks.
ù
Equal pay for men and women.
ù
Safety codes in the workplace.
ù
Prohibition of contract foreign labor.
ù
Abolition of the National Bank.
The Great Railroad Strike
of 1877
Anarchists Meet on the
Lake Front in 1886
This proved to be the downfall of the
Knights of Labor because it made people
think the Anarchists And Socialists were
behind the union
Haymarket Riot (1886)
Chicago Illinois
McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.
The American Federation
of Labor: 1886
Samuel Gompers
How the AF of L
Would Help the Workers
ù
Catered to the skilled worker.
ù
Represented workers in matters of national
legislation.
ù
Maintained a national strike fund.
ù
Evangelized the cause of unionism.
ù
Prevented disputes among the many craft unions.
ù
Mediated disputes between management and labor.
ù
Pushed for closed shops.
Homestead Steel Strike
(1892)
Homestead Steel
Works
The Amalgamated
Association of
Iron & Steel Workers
Homestead Steel Strike
• At the steel plant owned by Andrew Carnegie
• He brought in Pinkerton Agency detectives to
try to end it
• Had enough money to wait them out until they
had to go back to work in order to care for their
families
• 2 people killed
• Significant to the labor movement because it
hampered unionization until the 1940s – no one
wanted to risk organizing a union.
Attempted Assassination!
Henry Clay Frick
Alexander Berkman
Big Corporate Profits!
A
“Company
Town”:
Pullman, IL
Pullman Strike
• Occurred in 1894
• Company laid people off and cut pay but
refused to lower rents
• When the Panic was over and people went
back to work the company refused to restore
the pay to the pre-Panic level
• The workers called for a strike
• The strike was organized by Eugene V. Debs
the leader of the American Railway Union
The Socialists
Eugene V. Debs was a
socialist who began the
American Railway Union.
He believed that the
people should control
the means of production and
things should be distributed
fairly and workers should not
be taken advantage of.
He ran for president 5 times
but always lost
Pullman Cars
A Pullman porter
The Hand That Will Rule the
World One Big Union
International Workers of the
World (“Wobblies”)
Mother Jones:
“The Miner’s Angel”
 Mary Harris.
 Organizer for the
United Mine
Workers.
 Founded the Social
Democratic Party
in 1898.
 One of the
founding members
of the I. W. W. in
1905.
Lawrence, MA Strike:
1912
The
“Formula”
unions + violence + strikes + socialists + immigrants = anarchists
Labor Union Membership
The Rise & Decline of
Organized Labor