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.
• 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 railroadscut 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 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 to recognize union representative
• 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.
• 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 1886
• 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.
• 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 1894
• 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.
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.
HOMESTEAD 1892
• 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.
• 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 ARMY
• COXEY’S READING