National Labor Movement in America

The struggle of the workers to humanize the workplace and earn wages sufficient to support themselves and their

dependents.

Why did labor unions form?•Workload/pay – piecework or division of labor•Disconnect with owner/manager•Working conditions – safety•Child labor•Length of work day

Eight Hour Work Day• The celebration of Labor

Day (The first Monday in September) has its origins in the eight hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest.

•1868: First federal eight-hour day law passes: applies only to laborers, mechanics, and workmen employed by the government

Development of Unions• Labor Unions

Included unskilled workers, minorities, and women

Knights of Labor – Founded by Uriah Smith Stephens in 1869

Devoted to broad social reform such as replacing capitalism with workers’ cooperatives.

Short lived – by 1890s had almost disappeared.

Development of Unions• Trade Unions

Skilled labor

The American Federation of Labor

Founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886

Focused on issues of workers’ wages, hours, and working conditions.

Goals of labor unions

• Increased pay• Improved working

conditions• Labor laws/pro labor

candidates• Collective bargaining

Dangerous Working Conditions

• The worst mining disaster in American History occurred in the community of Monongah, West Virginia on December 6, 1907. Around 10 o'clock in the morning after a full force of 380 men and boys had begun their shift, mines number 6 and 8 of the Consolidated Coal Company shook from the impact of an underground explosion. A total of 362 men and boys lost there lives leaving 250 widows and over 1000 children without support.

Collective Bargaining• A process in which workers negotiate as a group

with employers. – Employees have more power to negotiate contracts as a

group.

Union Tactics• Political action: elections, protests, and marches• Work related: Strike, informational picketing and

leafleting, work slow down, work to contract• Community: boycotts

Railroad Strike of 1877

• 1st major nationwide strike• Began over wage cuts

during a depression• Workers reacted in violence

—riots started in Baltimore, spread

• President Hayes sent federal troops to put down strike

• Troops again needed after deadly riot

Haymarket Riot• May 1st 1886 Thousands of workers mounted a national

demonstration for an eight hour work day. • Knights of Labor started the movement

– Strikes erupted all over the nation. Strikebreakers were called

out to put the strikes down. – Violence erupted all over the country

Haymarket Riot• May 4th 1886 thousands of protesters gathered in

Haymarket Square in Chicago. - Crowd was made up of a mix of unionists and

anarchist who were against the government. - A bomb was thrown. Dozens of protestors and

policemen were killed.

Haymarket Riot Legacy• Knights of Labor were

viewed as radical and people began to drop from the union

• Employers became more suspicious of unions

• Unions became associated with violence.

Bronze memorial in Chicago Haymarket Square

Homestead Strike: 1892• Andrew Carnegie’s partner Henry

Frick attempted to cut workers’ wages at Carnegie Steel:– Union at plant in Homestead,

PA called a strike – Frick used the Pinkertons (a

private police force known for their ability to break strikes)—led to shootout with strikers

– Following a failed assassination attempt of Frick by radical—union called off the strike

Pullman Strike: 1894• Pullman owned the company that

made Pullman luxury railroad cars. • Pullman required all his workers to

live in the company town where he controlled rent and prices of goods.

• Workers tried to bargain with Pullman over issues of rent and wages. Pullman fired all of them and closed the plant.

• In response the railroad workers strike spread across the nation-wide

Pullman Strike• Eugene V. Debs called for a

boycott of Pullman cars after company refused to bargain with workers.

• 300,000 railroad workers walked off the job halting railroad traffic and mail delivery.

• Railroad owners cited the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in its argument that the union was illegally disrupting free trade.

• Debs was imprisoned and the strike was put down by Federal troops.

Pullman Strike Legacy• New trend in handling unions

– Employers appealed for court orders against unions citing the Sherman Anti-trust Act/

– Federal government continued to side with big business for more than 30 years.

– Strikes and contract negotiations would continue to define the relationship between Industrialist and Labors into the early 1900s.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

• After the Pullman Strike the labor movement splintered into different factions.

• Eugene Debs became a Socialist. In 1905 started the Wobblies. – Radical Union made up of unskilled workers – Most Wobblies strike were violent.

Owner tactics• Job/work threats• Political• Court injunction• Yellow dog contracts • Pinkertons

Big Business = Advantages over labor

Problems for the union• Economic bad times – examples: National Trade

Union done in by the panic and depression starting in 1837, National Labor Union died because of a depression 1873; depression of 1890’s

• Economic philosophies and political assumptions: free competition and laissez-faire economics – these clashed with the social realities of inequities in income distribution, appalling working conditions, and other social problems associated with urbanization.

• Pace of corporate monopolies quickened as did the price inflation

Unions continue to fight for Labor issues• Cesar Chavez:

– Family made their living as migrant farm workers: moving from farm to farm to provide the labor needed to plant, cultivate, & harvest crops

– Founded the United Farm Workers: a union that organized Mexican field hands in the West

• Believed unions offered the best opportunity to gain bargaining power & resist employers’ economic power

• UFW organized boycotts of grapes, lettuce, & other crops

Key Events

• 1886: AFL formed, Samuel Gompers president; Haymarket Affair

• 1888: First federal labor-relations law passed; applies only to rail companies

• 1900: International Ladies Garment Workers Union founded

• 1911: First workers’ compensation law in United States established in Wisconsin; The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire takes the lives of nearly 150 workers, mostly young women, who are unable to escape due in part to locked doors and sealed windows

• 1912: Massachusetts adopts the first minimum wage law for women and minors

• 1913: U.S. Department of Labor established; Secretary of Labor given power to act as a mediator and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes

• 1914: Wives and children of striking miners are set aflame when national guardsmen attack their tent colony during a strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; event referred to as the Ludlow Massacre

• 1924: An amendment to the Constitution restricting child labor is proposed, but not enough states pass the measure for enactment

• 1935: The Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) establishes the first national labor policy protecting the right of workers to organize and to elect their representatives for collective bargaining