LABOR ISSUES
GROWING WORK
FORCE
•14 million people
immigrated to US
between 1860-1900.
•Most looking for work
in industries
•9 million people moved
to cities to work in
factories
• Workers worked long hours for
little pay.
• 9-14 hour days for $1.50 a day
• Work was repetitive and
boring.
• Many work environments were
hazardous.
• Many children worked in
factories for longer hours than
adults and in more dangerous
conditions.
• Many workers lived in
cramped, unsanitary tenement
housing.
INDUSTRY
• Labor unions sprung up after
the Civil War for people of
the same trade
• Knights of LABOR – 1869pursued social reform
• 8 hour work days
• Equal pay=equal work
• End child labor
• 1885 – strike against
railroads- cut wages, some
strikes turned violent
• End of union by 1890’s
RISE OF LABOR UNIONS
• American Federation of Labor
• Led by Samuel Gompers
• Organized skilled workers in smaller unions
based on craft
• By 1892 there were 250,000 members (no
women)
• Focused on wages, hours and conditions
• Used strikes and boycotts plus collective
bargaining–process in which workers
negotiated as group with employers
• Encouraged a closed shop workplace (only
union members work here)
Reaction to labor unions
• Employers disliked unions
• Forbade union meetings
• Fired union organizers
• Forced new employees to sign
yellow dog contracts
• (never join a union)
• Refused of recognize union
representatives
• 1st major unrest of labor
• July 14 1877 B & O railroad announced a
10% wage cut
• Workers reacted with violence in Pittsburg,
Chicago, St. Louis
• President Hayes sent in troops to put down
the riots (1st time in history this happened)
• In Pittsburg -Soldiers fired on rioters and
killing and wounding many
• 20,000 angry men and women set fire to
the railroad company causing $5 million in
damages
• Hayes again sent in troops –this set
precedent for federal troops to repress labor
unrest
RAILROAD STRIKE 1877
• Took place on May 4, 1886, in
Chicago.
• Began when an unknown person
threw a homemade bomb at police as
they attempted to disperse a public
meeting in support of striking
workers. The blast and ensuing
gunfire resulted in the deaths of
seven police officers and an
unknown number of civilians.
• Eight anarchists were indicted for
murder. Although the state
presented no proof that any of the
eight had thrown the bomb, four of
those brought to trial were put to
death. Of those remaining, two fled
the country, one turned state‘s
evidence, and one committed suicide
in prison.
HAYMARKET RIOT 1886
• The causes of the incident are still controversial,
although deep disagreements between business and
working class people in late nineteenth century
Chicago—such as demands for an eight-hour day—are
generally acknowledged as having caused the tragedy.
• To commemorate the incident, labor leaders began
organizing May Day celebrations.
Haymarket Riot
• HAYMARKET SQUARE READINGS
• Began on May 11, 1894, when factory
workers at the Pullman Palace Car
Company, in the Chicago area, walked
out following failed negotiations over
declining wages.
• Strikers appealed to the American
Railway Union (ARU), which argued
unsuccessfully for arbitration. On June
20, the ARU announced that, effective
June 26, its membership would no
longer work trains that included
Pullman cars.
• By early July, and in the face of
crippling railway stoppages, the
federal government intervened,
forbidding boycott activities and
dispatching soldiers to Chicago and
other locales.
PULLMAN STRIKE 1894
• ARU President Eugene V. Debs was arrested and
imprisoned for ignoring the federal government‘s
injunctions. Unable to garner the support of other labor
leaders, the boycott and the ARU were effectively
• broken by mid-July.
• Although public sentiment did not favor the boycott,
George Pullman received broad criticism for his
company‘s paternalistic policies and refusal to arbitrate.
By and large, workers received the public‘s sympathy.
• PULLMAN STRIKE Readings
• Occurred on March 25, 1911, in New York City‘s Asch Building, where the
Triangle Shirtwaist Company occupied the top three of the building‘s ten
floors. The fire began shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the eighth floor cutting room,
where tons of fabric fed the flames.
• While most of the workers on the eighth and tenth floors escaped, dozens of
workers on the ninth floor were trapped, unable to open a door that could
have led to their escape.
• 146 workers died in about fifteen minutes. Some of the deaths were caused
by the collapse of the rear fire escape. Some workers tried to slide down the
elevator cables, but lost their grip and fell to their death. Others jumped to
their death from the building‘s windows.
• Company owners were initially charged with manslaughter, but were later
acquitted. In 1914, the court ordered them to pay damages to the families of
twenty-three victims who had sued.
• The tragedy led to efforts to improve factory safety and it served as a catalyst
for organizing garment workers.
TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE
• TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST READINGS
•Occurred in Homestead, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh) between the
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the
Carnegie
Steel Company.
In 1889 workers negotiated a three-year contract, which included a
sliding
wage scale based on the market price for steel. As the contract neared
expiration,
Andrew Carnegie, the plant‘s owner, traveled to Scotland, leaving
manager
Henry Clay Frick in charge.
Negotiations between workers and Frick failed. On June 30, 1892, the
day the contract was to expire, workers were locked out of the plant and
a strike began.
HOMESTEAD 1892
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Workers blocked the plant to prevent scabs, a worker who replaces a Union
worker during a strike, from entering. In response, Frick arranged to have 300
strike-breaking detectives from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency
(known as Pinkertons) provide security for the plant.
When the Pinkertons attempted to arrive on July 6 under cover of darkness,
workers sounded alarms and people gathered to meet the force. The Pinkertons
opened fire: three Pinkertons and seven workers died, and others were
injured.
Six days later the National Guard arrived.
On November 17, day laborers and mechanics voted to return to work.
Three days later, the prohibition on returning to work for the company
was lifted. The plant rehired some as non-union workers, but
blacklisted others.
• READINGS OF HOMESTEAD STRIKE
• Refers to a protest march by
unemployed American workers,
led by the populist Jacob S.
Coxey. While its official name
was the Commonweal in Christ,
the movement took its nickname
from its leader‘s name.
• The purpose of the march was
to protest the unemployment
caused by the economic
depression of 1893 and to urge
the government to create public
works jobs.
COXEY’S ARMY
• The march began in Massillon, Ohio, and it included 100
men. Although Coxey predicted that this number would
swell to 100,000, the ―army numbered only 500 by the
time it reached Washington, D.C.
• When Coxey‘s Army reached the capital on April 30,
1894, Coxey and other movement leaders were arrested
for walking on the grass of the U.S. Capitol. The rest of
the army then scattered.
• Some of the movement‘s more militant leaders went on
to head ―armies‖ of their own in the Pacific Northwest,
where many of the protestors were unemployed railroad
workers.
• COXEY’S READING
• On your study guide, please add these terms:
• Monopoly
• Trusts (in business, not the kind of trust you have with
your friends)
• John D. Rockefeller
• Laissez-Faire Economics
• The Transcontinental Railroad
• Cornelius Vanderbuilt
• The Guilded Age