Labor Movement In United States (1865-1900)
Why did workers attempt to organize?
•Low wages
•Long work hours
•Forced to sign “ironclad oaths” or “yellow dog contracts”
•Companies often controlled where workers worked, ate,
lived and shopped
•No job security (unskilled labor force required)
•Blacklisting by companies
Labor Force Distribution 1870-1900
The Changing of American Labor Force
Child Labor in the US
“Galley Labor”
Labor Unrest (1870-1900)
Management v . Labor
“Tools” of management
•“scabs”
•P. R. campaign
•Pinkertons
•Lockout
•Blacklisting
•yellow-dog contracts
•court injunctions
•open shop
“Tools” of labor
•Boycotts
•sympathy demonstrations
•informational picketing
•closed shops
•organized strikes
•“wildcat” strikes
•collective bargaining
Workers organize!
National Labor Union (NLU)
•Organized in 1866 by William Sylvis
•Lasted 6 years
•Focused on 8 hour workday,
collective bargaining
•Included skilled and unskilled
workers, farmers and blacks (until
1869)
•Destroyed by depressions of 1870s.
Knights of Labor (1869)
•Founded by Terence Powderly
•“One Big Union” including
women and blacks
•Fought for many social and
economic reforms
•Destroyed by the Great
Upheaval and Haymarket
Square Riot
Goals of Knights of Labor:
•8 hour workday
•Safety codes
•End of child labor
•End of wage system
•Equal pay for women
•Higher pay
•Gov’t regulation of industry
“An injury to one is concern
to all…”
•The Knights destroyed by the
Great Upheaval (1886) and
especially the Haymarket
Square Riot (May 4, 1886)
Haymarket Square Riot
•Five anarchists sentenced to death
and three others given stiff prison
sentences
• Knights of Labor were blamed
•In 1892, Governor Altgeld pardoned
the remaining three
Other notable action by organized labor
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
•First nationwide strike
•Over 100,000 workers involved, 14 states affected, and 10
railroads
•President Hayes dispatched federal troops to stop the
strike (important!)
Molly Maguires (1875)
•Radical organization (all Irish)
•Secret organization (Ancient
Order of Hiberians)
•Used violence, murder, arson,
threat to fight for the right to
unionize
•Infiltrated by Pinkertons
•Twenty members hanged and
organization destroyed in 1877
James McParland
American Federation of Labor (1886)
•Created by Samuel Gompers
Different approach of the AFofL:
•Concentrated only on skilled labor
•Dealt only with “bread and butter” issues
•Enforced closed shop
•Maintained strike fund
•500,000 members by 1900 (Labor Trust?)
•Walkout and boycott as instruments of
labor
•Attempted to be non-political
Homestead Strike (1892)
•One of Carnegie’s steel plants
•Started after workers’ salaries slashed by 20% by Carnegie
and Frick
•300 Pinkertons were defeated by the workers
•PA governor called in 8,000 militia, scabs replaced workers
•Union broken
•Clearly showed that employer can break a strike using private
police with support of gov’t and courts
Attempted assassination of Henry Frick
The Amalgamated Association of Iron &
Steel Workers destroyed…
Henry Clay Frick
Alexander Berkman
Pullman Strike (1894)
•Pullman Town built as a
response to Railroad Strike of
1877
•Pullman hit by depression cuts
wages by 1/3, prices of rent
remaining the same
•Eugene V. Debs involved in the
strike although warned ARU
(American Railway Union) not to
strike
•Pullman cars destroyed, traffic
from Chicago to the Pacific
stopped
•Grover Cleveland calls in troops after an injunction is
issued by the court claiming mail is not delivered.
•First time a strike is stopped by injunction (AUR destroyed)
•Government by injunction!
“If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in
Chicago, that card will be delivered!”
Eugene V. Debs becomes the
leader of the Socialist Party
after being released from
prison…
•Ran for President in
1904, 1908, 1912, and
1920 (last time from
prison)
Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) (1905)
Bill Haywood
“Violence was justified to overthrow capitalism”
•Ag. AFofL strategy
•Socialism = the answer
•Mostly destroyed by gov’t for the radical
stance and opposition to WWI
The Hand that will rule the World=One
Big Union
“The working class and the
employing class have nothing in
common. There can be no peace so
long as hunger and want are found
among millions of the working people
and the few, who make up the
employing class, have all the good
things of life. Between these two
classes a struggle must go on until
the workers of the world organize as
a class, take possession of the
means of production, abolish the
wage system, and live in harmony
with the Earth. ... Instead of the
conservative motto, 'A fair day's
wage for a fair day's work', we must
inscribe on our banner the
revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
of the wage system.' It is the historic
mission of the working class to do
away with capitalism… “
The formula
unions + violence +
strikes + socialists +
immigrants = anarchists
“Solidarity Forever!” by Ralph Chapin (1915)
When the union's inspiration
through the workers‘ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater
anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker
than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong!
CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union
makes us strong!
Impact of Labor Unions
•23,000 strikes involving 6.6 million workers (1881-1900)
•Labor Day instituted by Congress in 1894
•Public slowly began to support labor unions
•AFofL reaches 3 million members in 1917
•Some union accomplishments stopped by courts
(Lochner v. New York (1905), Danbury Hatters Case, 1908)
•Wide use of injunction by the courts under the Sherman
Anti-Trust Act
Right to Work States Today