Unit 5: Age of Reform
The Labor Movement
Vocabulary
 Scab
- A worker who refused to strike; also
another name for a strikebreaker.
 Arbitration
- The settlement of disagreements between
workers and employers by an impartial
(objective) third party.
 Injunction
- Court order that requires or forbids some
specific action in a labor dispute.
Company Towns
A huge mining company, textile mill, or factory
that controlled and operated everything
within the town.
The company owned all houses, buildings, and
stores and hired all the local officials.
Workers were afraid to make demands for
better conditions and frequently were not
paid cash, but given credit at company
stores.
Individual workers had no bargaining power
with large, powerful, impersonal
corporations to gain higher wages or better
working conditions.
Poor Working Conditions
 Workers believed that they were not receiving
their fair portion of the great profits brought
on by the nation’s great industrial growth.
- Skilled workers received $20/week and
unskilled workers received $10/week.
 Factories were unsafe and workers usually
were given no compensation or insurance
for the many accidents that occurred on the
job.
- Between 1900 and 1910, 3% of all
employed workers in the United States
were killed or injured every year in
industrial accidents.
- In 1881, 30,000 railroad workers were
killed or hurt on the job.
Workers worried about wage cuts or layoffs
during hard economic times.
- Unemployment in 1889 was at 19% for
factory and transportation laborers.
- Some workers lost their jobs because of
new machines. This is called
Technological Unemployment.
 Wages were low for these reasons:
1. The increasing power of employers over
employees
2. Economic Depressions
3. The competitive national market for cheap
labor
4. The flood of immigrant workers
The Rise of Labor Unions
 Labor Union - organization of many workers
who could negotiate and bargain with
business leaders for such things as higher
pay, shorter hours, and better working
conditions.
 Poor working conditions in the late 19th century
1. Salary averaged $1 or $2 per day
2. Workers averaged an 11-14 hour workday
for 6 or 7 days a week.
3. Unsafe factories – many accidents and
injuries
4. Had to take these jobs during tough
economic times (Depression of 1873)
 Types of Labor Unions
1. Craft Unions - organizations of workers in
the same trade. (Plumbers,
Carpenters)
2. Industrial Unions - organizations of
workers of many trades who work in the same
industry. (Steel or automobile
workers)
 In 1869, The Knights of Labor was founded
under the leadership of Uriah S. Stevens
(1869-1879)
 Under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly,
the union membership grew.
 The Knights wanted the following:
1. Government ownership of railroads and
utilities.
2. 8 hour work day
3. Equal pay for men and women
4. An end to employment of children under 14
5. An income tax based on the ability to pay
* Strikes were used only if all bargaining failed
 Powderly encouraged all workers, skilled and
unskilled, to join the union
1. Women were members and many played
important roles in the union.
2. Allowed black workers to become
members
3. Although somewhat open-minded, the
Knights discriminated against Chinese
immigrant workers and support
passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Review
• Name some reasons why wages were low…
• These organizations were set up in order to rise
up against employers…
• What were some of the poor working conditions
in the late 19th century?
• What union had workers in the same trade in it?
• Name the union that had workers from many
trades in it?
• What major union organization was led by
Terence Powderly?
• Name some things they wanted to change…
Failures for Labor
Molly Maguires - Irish workers who formed a
secret society in the Pennsylvania coal
fields. They tried to win their goals through
violence.
Railroad strikes of 1877 turned violent.
President Hayes sent federal troops to put
down strikers in West Virginia.
Haymarket Riot (May 4, 1886)
1. Strike against the McCormick Harvester
Works in Chicago turned violent.
2. A bomb was thrown into the police and
they fired guns into the strikers.
3. 7 policemen were dead and 70 people
were injured; 8 strikers were convicted
of murder and 4 were executed.
4. The Haymarket Riot led to negative
public support of the labor movement
and meant the end of the Knights of
Labor and other small unions.
Industry Against the Unions
 Employers and corporations used lawyers,
advertising, lobbyists, and political influence
to turn public sympathy against labor unions.
 Black Lists - A list of workers’ names that
belonged to or led unions that was circulated
among several business employers. Any
person on the list was denied a job in that
industry.
 Yellow-Dog Contracts - A written agreement
not to join a union that some employers
forced workers to sign. The worker was fired
if he violated the contract.
Paid undercover informants were used by
employers to gain information about a union,
report on strike plans, and reveal the names
of labor leaders.
1. Sometimes guards or agents were hired
to use violence against strikers.
2. Once the strike turned violent, employers
called in the police, state militia, or
even Federal Troops.
 Lockout - Business owners closed their plants
and locked out the workers.
 Strikebreakers - Nonunion workers hired to do
the work of the strikers (scabs).
The American Federation of Labor
(AFL)
 Formed in 1886 by skilled craft union workers.
 Samuel Gompers was president of the union
until 1924.
 Avoided politics and violence – sought to
increase membership in its unions.
 Homestead Strike (1892)
1. AFL strike against the Carnegie Steel
Plant in Homestead, PA.
2. Henry C. Frick closed the plant and called
out 300 guards to break the strike.
3. The strike was broken only after a bloody
battle.
4. Most members left the union and
remained unskilled.
Pullman Strike (May 1894)
 American Railway Union (ARU) was a rapidly
growing industrial union of railroad workers
and was led by Eugene V. Debs.
 ARU went on strike against the Pullman
Company, Chicago.
1.Fight the cut in wages and firing of workers
2. Planned to stop rail traffic to West Coast.
Pullman Company had cut wages BUT no rent
in the company town. They refused to
arbitrate with the ARU.
1. ARU directed members not to handle
Pullman sleeping cars and to refuse to
operate trains with Pullman cars
attached.
2.Rail strike spread across the country and
threatened to disrupt the entire
economy.
 Railroad managers brought the Federal
government into the dispute.
1. U.S. mail cars were attached to every
train hauling Pullman cars.
2. When strikers tried to stop these trains,
managers asked President Cleveland
to send in federal troops to protect the
U.S. mail and to end the violence.
3. Attorney General Richard Olney, former
railroad lawyer, had connections to the
president.
4. Governor John P. Altgeld (Illinois) did not
want federal help, but Cleveland sent
the troops anyway.
 Olney got an injunction.
 Debs refused to obey and was held in
contempt of court (sent to jail).
 First time the Federal government broke a
strike with an injunction.