Rise of Organized Labor
• Assembly lines create more jobs
• Assembly lines create more products
• Assembly lines get work done faster…
NOW there’s a “mad dash” to see which
companies will make MORE products FASTER
Rise of Organized Labor
People are rushing to get the job
done, so the level of quality goes
down
“If you’re going to do something,
do it right”
- Love Mom
Workers are under poor conditions as
a result
Who will protect
us?......UNIONS
“This process was handed down from father to son & in the course of time
came to my father and so to me. None of us ever went to school & learned
the chemistry of it from books. We learned the trick by doing it, standing
with our faces in the scorching heat”
Puddler: person who mixes
molten, dangerous metals in a
factory
Rise of Organized Labor
Machines begin to take over the jobs
people had performed in the past
• Example: converters could mix metals, cook
them at right tem, produce perfect steel
• A growing sense of powerlessness leads
workers to join together in UNIONS
New Workplace
– Before: small factories, family owned, very personal,
good wages
– By 1802:
• Large, crowded factories
• No personal relationships
• Low wages (skills easily replaced by machines)
Sweatshops: workplace where people labor long
hours in poor conditions for low pay begin to crop up.
Most workers were young women & children
Children
- 2 million children under 15 working in sweatshops
- Textile mills, tobacco factories, garment sweatshops, coal mines
- No school or rest = destroys chance for a better future
• Vicious cycle (what was our “vicious cycle” during
Reconstruction?)
Hazards
»Lung damaging dust
»Cave-ins
»Gas explosions
»Molten metal spills
»Health problems & injuries
• 195 die in Pittsburgh in one year
alone
Organized Labor
Many workers unhappy with conditions & find ways to fight back
• Slowed work pace
• Went on strike
– Informal – organized by workers in individual factories
– Pushed for better conditions, but most failed (unorganized)
Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor: 1869 an American labor
organization to protect the rights of workers
• Elected Terence Powderly as president
– He opens membership to
» Immigrants
» African Americans
» Women
» Unskilled workers
Rallies in Favor of
• Shorter workday
• End to child labor
• Equal pay for men and women
• Workers and employers share
ownership & profits
• 1885: 700,000 people join KOL
Haymarket Square Riot:
• Workers at McCormick Harvester Co. in Chicago go on
strike (not-endorsed by KOL)
• McCormick (like many others) hired strikebreakers:
replacements for striking workers
• May 3, 1886: workers clash with strikebreakers outside
the factory
– Police open fire, 4 workers killed
Haymarket Square
• Next day thousands gather to protest killings,
rally led by anarchists: people who oppose all
forms of organized government
–Bomb goes off & kills 7 policemen
Haymarket Square
8 anarchists arrested for part in Haymarket Riot: labor rally
in Chicago in 1886 that ended in violence when a bomb
exploded
»4 men were tried, convicted & hanged with no proof
»Many Americans linked unions to dangerous anarchists
• Result: many dropped union membership in KOL
American Federation of Labor
Columbus Ohio, 1886 – AFL: American Federation of
Labor - organization of trade unions that represented
skilled workers only
AFL
– Workers didn’t join directly, instead they
joined a trade union
• Trade union: union of people working in the
same trade
– Ex. A typesetter joins a typesetter’s union/ that
union then joins AFL
» SO…AFL is a large organization made up of
many different unions
AFL
Collective bargaining: the right of the unions to
negotiate with management for workers as a group
How is the AFL different from the KOL?...
1.5 million people join AFL by 1910
• -: African Americans, immigrants, unskilled
workers were barred from most trade unions and
couldn’t join the AFL
Women
– Form the majority of workers in factories by 1890
• Tobacco, garment, textile mills
• Women begin to form their own unions
Mother Jones
• Irish-born Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones)
– Speaks out about children working in textile mills
“barefoot- reaching thin little hands into the machinery”
Triangle Tragedy
• 1911: fire breaks out in Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory (sweatshop in NY city)
– Exits are locked (lockouts for union employees)
– No doors push out (body blocks)
– Fire truck ladders can’t reach windows
– Fire hoses not long enough
– Elevators didn’t work (no one knew)
– Poor/ overwhelmed communications don’t
transfer
– Windows on lower floors have bars on them
– Only option….jump!
150 people die
Result: new safety laws
“As I looked up there at a window, a young man was helping girls to
leap out. Suddenly one of them put her arms around him and kissed
him. Then he held her out into space and dropped her. He jumped next.
Thud…dead. Thud…dead” – NY Times March 26th 1911
• Biggest travesty to hit NY until 9/1/2001
Organized Labor Meets Hardship
– In a booming economy, many industries rush too
fast to gain higher profits
– Goods flood the market and prices drop
Think back to our conversation yesterday about the
loss of quality in becoming more commercialized
Organized Labor Meets Hardship
To cover losses, owners fired workers
• Ends in vicious cycle…holds for a while, until progress
rebuilds, more are hired, same cycle repeats
• Result: a wild yo-yoing between very good & very bad
times
• 1870-1900: 2 major depressions & 3 smaller
recessions rock country
After Economy
Factories &
Faster Work
Over
production
Price Drops
Layoffs
Has a Short Time
to Re-boost…
How difficult would it have been to
support a family in such conditions?
»Competition
»Low $$
»Safety or harassment
»Injuries, health and sanitation?
When Workers Go On Strike…
• Gov’t usually sided with owners
–Political reasons
–Bribery
–They are the people who are “responsible” for
creating economic booms which the country needs
»Who is actually responsible for turning out
production???
• Presidents send in troops/ military/ police to
intimidate strikers
• Courts rule against strikers too
Strikes get a bad reputation…
but why?
1. They result in progress- but it’s slow
2. Because of instances like Haymarket Square, many
strikes are associated with riots & anarchists or
“extremists”
3. Intimidation by the government makes people want to
support strikes less and less
Want To Test Yourself
A Little More?!?!?!?.......
YouTube: “A New Industrial Revolution”
(1:30)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1m0QudJibQ
Mr. Parker found this nice “wrap
up” video….use it as a review/
what to expect!
The Lorax
•
http://gozie.com/video/MXNSGS1U8S7K/The-Lorax-Full-Movie-by-Dr-Seuss