Labor Unions

Working conditions

Monotonous – same job day after day

12 – 16 hour shifts, 6 days a week

Dangerous machinery with no safety precautions

Workers frequently lost fingers, limbs, eyesight, & hearing

Lung diseases from coal and lint dust

When workers were injured or too sick to work, they were fired

Child Labor Factory owners

often hired children because:

They were smaller, so more room for machinery

They were cheaper – children were paid less than half of what grown men were

They were easier to intimidate with beatings and abuse

Craft Unions vs. Trade Unions

Craft UnionsOnly allowed highly skilled

craftsmen to joinMachinists, welders, electricians,

etc.

Trade UnionsDesigned for unskilled laborersGeneral factory workers,

construction workers, etc.

Industrial Unions United all craft and

trade workers in a particular industry in a single union

Example: United Auto Workers unites everyone who works in the auto manufacturing industries

Union Tactics Strikes: workers walked off

the job in protest Boycotts: encouraged the

public to not buy goods from companies that would not negotiate with labor

Collective bargaining: employees negotiate contracts as a group rather than as individuals

Mediation: allowing a neutral third party to oversee negotiations

Arbitration: allowing a neutral third party to hear both sides’ arguments and make a final, binding ruling

Closed shops: agreement where employers could only hire union members, non-union workers were banned from the workplace

Employer Responses

Yellow-dog contracts: contracts which forbade workers from joining unions

Blacklists: known union sympathizers were fired

Lockouts: closing of factories to punish workers for unionizing

Scabs: replacement workers hired to replace strikers

Injunctions: sought legal court orders that forbade strikes

Strikebreakers: hired thugs used to violently attack union leaders, strikers

Government Responses

Supported employers over labor unions

Courts often ruled unions and strikes to be illegal conspiracies

Courts authorized use of force to break strikes when necessary

Presidents even used the US Army to break strikes

Great Railway Strike of 1877

80,000 railroad workers went on strike to protest pay cuts

Angry strikers damaged equipment, ripped up tracks, and blocked other tracks

President Hayes ordered US Army to reopen tracks

Over 100 people died in clashes between strikers and troops, millions of dollars in damage done to railroads

The Knights of Labor

1869 – 1949 Workers’ organization

(NOT a labor union) Wanted an 8-hour

workday Promoted equal pay

for women Supported a ban on

child labor Proposed worker-

owned factories Never well-organized,

which left it ineffective

The Haymarket Riot May 1886: Unions called for a

day of general strike to promote the 8-hour workday

Strikers and police clashed in Chicago, 1 striker killed

Anarchists protested in Haymarket Square the next day; police arrived to break up the demonstration

A bomb was set off, followed by a gun battle, killing 8 policemen, 4 strikers

8 anarchists were arrested, including a member of the Knights of Labor

4 were executed for murder Knights of Labor lost

popularity for being associated with anarchists

The American Federation of Labor

(AFL) Merger of 20+ trade unions into the AFL in 1886

Focus – get companies to recognize unions and agree to collective bargaining, push for closed shops, promote the 8-hour work day

Still exists today as the AFL-CIO

Samuel Gompers 1850 – 1924 1st leader of the AFL Supported “plain and

simple” unions: keep unions out of politics, reject ideals of socialism, communism, and anarchism

Concentrate on little things – better wages and working conditions

Preferred negotiation over strikes or boycotts

The Homestead Strike

June-July, 1892 Steel workers at Andrew

Carnegie’s mill in Homestead, PA demanded higher wages, Carnegie responded by locking out workers, fortifying the plant with high fences and guard towers and trying to hire scabs

Striking workers laid siege to the plant, refused to allow scabs or even managers entry

Carnegie sent 300 armed agents of the Pinkerton Security firm to secure the plant and a gun battle erupted

The Homestead Strike (cont.)

The Pinkerton agents were forced to surrender and run out of town, prompting the governor to send in the state militia to end the violence

Under the protection of 4000 soldiers, the plant reopened with (mostly black) replacement workers and the strike failed; union voted to accept the pay cut and go back to work

The Pullman Strike

May 1894 Pullman Company (which

built train cars), required workers to live in the town of Pullman, IL and buy goods from company owned stores

Pullman cut wages, leading to workers struggling to meet their rent & buy necessities

Workers who complained were fired, prompting a general strike

Members of the American Railway Union across the country refused to work on Pullman-built cars to show support for the strikers, tying up rail traffic

The Pullman Strike (cont.)

Railroads arranged for US mail to be attached to Pullman cars, resulting in the mail not being delivered

Strikers and the ARU were then in violation of federal law for interfering with the delivery of the US mail

This prompted the US government to get involved to ensure the delivery of the mail

Pres. Grover Cleveland ordered US troops to enforce a court injunction, breaking the boycott of Pullman cars and ending the strike of Pullman workers

Eugene V. Debs 1855 – 1926 Worked with many

different unions in his career, but gained much of his experience by helping to form the American Railway Union

Debs was sent to prison for failing to obey the court injunction ordering the end to the Pullman Strike

While incarcerated, Debs became a socialist and would later run for President as the Socialist Party’s candidate 5 times (1900, ’04, ’08, ’12, & ’20)

Opposition to WWI would land him in prison a second time

Women’s Trade Union League

Most unions excluded women workers because they weren’t the primary breadwinners for families

1903: Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, Leonora O’Reilly, Jane Addams, & Lillian Ward created the WTUL

Goals: 8-hour work day, a minimum wage, no night shifts for women, ban on child labor

Support for Unions damaged by:

Marxists: believed that labor should own and operate factories communally (socialism)

Anarchists: opposed all government, were willing to use violence to achieve their ends (essentially terrorists)

Nativism: anti-immigration sentiments were fed by the number of immigrants who were Marxists, anarchists