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Labor Unions

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Title: Labor Unions


1
Labor Unions
2
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!

3
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

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Craft Unions vs. Trade Unions
  • Craft Unions
  • Only allowed highly skilled craftsmen to join
  • Machinists, welders, electricians, etc.
  • Trade Unions
  • Designed for unskilled laborers
  • General factory workers, construction workers,
    etc.

11
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

12
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

13
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

14
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

15
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

16
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

17
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

18
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

19
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

20
The Homestead Strike
  • June-July, 1892
  • Steel workers at Andrew Carnegies 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

21
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

22
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

23
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

24
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
    Partys candidate 5 times (1900, 04, 08, 12,
    20)
  • Opposition to WWI would land him in prison a
    second time

25
Womens Trade Union League
  • Most unions excluded women workers because they
    werent the primary breadwinners for families
  • 1903 Mary Kenney OSullivan, Leonora OReilly,
    Jane Addams, Lillian Ward created the WTUL
  • Goals 8-hour work day, a minimum wage, no night
    shifts for women, ban on child labor

26
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
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