Labor in the Gilded Age

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Labor in the Gilded Age

• Lecture 1
• The Great Strikes and Demonstrations

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Administrative

• Reading for next time
• Montgomery Work Rules and Manliness
• Haymarket AnarchistFights for Freedom
• Reading for class after movie
• George Pullman Defends Managerial Paternalism
• Samuel Gompers Defends the Right to Strike
• Movie in class next time snacks!

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Review

• Working conditions and relations among different
  parts of the working class from the Civil War to
  1880
• Development of unions, especially national labor
  federations, especially the Knights of Labor

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Today

• I- Period of great strikes
• II- The Haymarket Square Riot

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I- Period of Great Labor Upheavals

• Great labor wars between workers and the monopoly
  capitalists
• Demonstrations that employers and their allies in
  government were determined to crush
• Employer claim that strikes and unions were the
  work of anarchists, communists, and were
  un-American

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Focus of Strikes Heart of American Industry

• Railroads
• Railroad Strike of 1877
• Strikes against Goulds railways in 1885 and 1886
  by the Knights
• Strike by American Railway Union against Pullman
  in 1894
• Mining
• Metal Miners, Coeur DAlene Idaho
• Coal Miners, Tennessee
• Steel The Homestead Strike - 1892

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Government and Strikes

• In many of these cases, the union was poised to
  win a great victory
• In most of those, government intervention on the
  side of the employers turned the tide
• Some took the lesson that workers needed
  political influence
• Others took the lesson that unions should stay
  out of politics in the hope that government would
  then stay out of union business

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II- Haymarket Square Riot

• May 1886
• Began with the demand that workers implement the
  8-hour day on May 1, 1886
• On May 3, lockout at McCormick Harvester works
  turned violent

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Chicago Central Labor Council

• Led by Anarcho-Syndicalists
• One was Albert Parsons, who was told to get out
  of town during the 1877 railway strike
• Called demonstration downtown to protest the
  police action at McCormick the previous day

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The Demonstration

• Series of fiery speakers
• The Mayor left, stopping at the local police
  station to tell the police chief it was a
  peaceful meeting and there was no problem
• Police arrived

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The Riot

• Bomb thrown, no one knows by whom, into the
  police ranks
• One killed immediately (several died later) and
  many injured
• Police began shooting and clubbing wildly
• No one knows how many died but over 200 injured

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Aftermath

• Group of men charged
• Included Parsons and his associate August Spies
• Both had left the demonstration around the same
  time the mayor did

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Aftermath

• States Attorney said, Convict these men, make
  examples of them, hang them, and you save our
  institutions.
• Chicago police instituted reign of terror against
  dissident groups
• Same States Attorney told the police to, Make
  the raids first and look up the law afterwards.

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Trial

• Parsons went into hiding
• Candidates for the jury chosen by a special
  bailiff instead of at random
• One was a relative of a police victim
• Others admitted prejudice but were permitted to
  serve anyway
• Evidence filled with contradictory and unclear
  statements and obvious lies

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Trial

• Jury was inundated with anarchist and socialist
  literature
• Really defendants ideology that was on trial
• All 8 convicted and five sentenced to death
• Executed November 1887
• Others pardoned in 1894

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Impact

• Haymarket Square set back the labor movement for
  years
• Simultaneously associated by the press with the
  Molly Maguires, the Anarchists, and the Knights
• 1886 200,000 workers had achieved 8 hours. By
  one year later, only 15,000 still had it
• Still has an impact now

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Next Time

• Film next class
• Following class well talk about the Pullman
  Strike

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Labor in the Gilded Age

• Lecture 2
• Film- The River Ran Red

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Labor in the Gilded Age

• Lecture 3
• The Pullman Strike

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Administrative

• Reading finish this topic
• Essay reminder

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Review

• Period of great strikes
• Railroad 1877 Railway Strike
• Mining
• Steel Homestead Strike
• The Haymarket Square Riot
• Riot blamed on Anarchist-led unionists but
  clearly not their doing
• Major setback for unionism

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Today

• The Pullman Strike of 1894
• Eugene V. Debs and Industrial Unionism
• The Pullman Company
• Causes of the strike
• Conduct of the strike
• The Aftermath

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I. Eugene Debs and Industrial Unionism

• Born in Indiana 1855
• Had worked as Fireman and as Engineer
• Popular and influential
• Believed strikes not an effective labor weapon,
  advocated arbitration
• Same time as he changed his mind about strikes,
  he began to doubt the effectiveness of craft
  unionism

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I. Debs and Industrial Unionism

• June 1893 American Railway Union founded
• Early success in strike against Great Northern
  Railroad
• Result was dramatic growth

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II. The Pullman Company

• George M. Pullman came from working class family
• Developed idea for sleeping cars on trains
• Success led to need for large factory which he
  built in Chicago in 1880
• Decided to build a model community for his
  workshops and workers

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The Model Community

• Rents 25 higher than in neighboring communities
• Gas had to be bought from the company
• Spies
• In 1892 Pullman made 4,000,000

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III. Causes of the Strike

• Summer 1893, in midst of panic, Pullman decided
  to cut costs
• Refused to reduce rents or cost of utilities
• December 1893 strike
• Result was that the men began to form branches of
  the ARU

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III. Causes of the Strike

• May 1894 elected committee to bring grievances to
  management
• Next morning, three of the committee members were
  fired
• Meeting of the full committee that evening
  decided on a strike unless the men were rehired

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IV. Conduct of the Strike

• Pullman went on vacation
• Workers formed strike committee
• For a month, strike remained local and peaceful
• June 12, 1894 ARU opened its first national
  convention, in Chicago
• Debs predicted boycott would become national
  strike

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IV. Conduct of the Strike

• After 4 days 125,000 workers on strike
• Initially quite peaceful
• Widespread support by workers of all kinds
• Mail cars moved fine and almost no violence at
  all in Chicago
• Clearly the workers were winning

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IV. Conduct of the Strike

• Media turned against strike once it spread beyond
  Pullman
• Still clearly the workers were winning
• Of the 24 rail lines feed Chicago, 13 were
  virtually immobilized

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IV. Conduct of the Strike

• Intervention of the Federal Government
• Key was Attorney General Richard Olney
• Olney wired US Attorneys to protect mail
• Federal marshals ordered to protect mail
• Debs publicly offered to assign union work crews
  to any mail train that did not have a sleeper car
  attached

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Intervention of the Federal Government

• Olney wanted Cleveland to send troops
• Interference with the mail provided the excuse
• June 30, Olney appointed a special federal
  counsel in Chicago
• His main function was to help railroads secure
  injunctions against the strike

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Intervention of the Federal Government

• Application for injunction immediately granted
• One of the most wide-ranging injunctions ever
  issued before or since
• Debs and other officers enjoined
• US Strike Commission
• US Supreme Court upheld the injunction later
• Debs decided to flout the injunction

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Intervention of the Federal Government

• July 3, Walker and others sent telegram to
  President requesting troops
• Requested to protect federal property, mail, and
  enforce injunctions
• Cleveland now ordered federal troops to Chicago
• July 5 Debs offered again to end the boycott if
  the employer would agree to arbitrate the dispute

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Intervention of the Federal Government

• Major conflicts as well in Denver, San Francisco
  and several other places
• Cleveland issued order against assemblages of any
  kind in Illinois
• Still widespread public support for strikers
• Judge Grosscup now called into session a grand
  jury to investigate the insurrection against
  the state of Illinois

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IV. Conduct of Strike

• July 8, Debs sent out call for support
• Chicago Trades and Labor Council met
• July 11, city-wide strike attracted only 25,000
  supporters
• July 12, AFL Executive met
• Debs then proposed calling the strike off

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IV. Conduct of Strike

• July 17, four ARU officers rearrested
• Bail set at 10,000 each
• This time they decided to remain in jail
• July 20 federal troops withdrawn
• By August 1, the railroads had enough men and the
  trains were running again
• August 2, ARU held meeting and declared the
  strike over

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V. Aftermath

• Widespread firing and blacklisting of strikers
• No one ever prosecuted for violence against the
  strikers
• Strikers frequently prosecuted
• Debs convicted of contempt
• Pullman Strike Repression was a Public Relations
  Disaster for Cleveland and the Democrats

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V. Aftermath

• Debs became a Socialist at the expense of US tax
  payers
• Eventually became leader of the American
  Socialist Party
• Ran for President five times
• Labor Day

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Next time

• New craft unionism
• American Federation of Labor
• Industrial Workers of the World

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Labor in the Gilded Age

• Lecture 4
• The New Craft Unionism and Workers Before the
  Turn of the Century

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Administrative

• Quiz Reminder
• Mid-term Reminder
• Second Essay Reminder

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Review

• Railroad Strike of 1877
• The Haymarket Square Riot - 1886
• The Homestead Strike 1892
• The Pullman Strike 1894
• In each case, the government intervened to
  suppress dissent and to crush the workers

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Today

• I- The New Craft Unionism
• II- Origins and Founding of the American
  Federation of Labor
• III- The World of the Workers, 1880-1900

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I- The New Craft Unionism

• Decline of the Knights following the unsuccessful
  strike against Goulds railways and Haymarket
  Square Riot in 1886
• The Cigar Makers model of unionism
• Why might cigar makers be among the intellectual
  leaders of the labor movement?

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Cigar Makers Reorganization

• Union reorganized by Adolph Strasser, who became
  president in 1877
• Aided by his ally, Samuel Gompers
• In 1867 cigar makers had already become the first
  national union to admit women and admitted
  African-Americans at same time

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Cigar Makers New Model

• Centralization
• Even more, entire emphasis on a narrow agenda
• Wages
• Hours
• Working Conditions
• Why did this narrow agenda work?
• Adoption of this model seemed to breathe new life
  and vitality into the union movement

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II- Origins and Founding of the American
Federation of Labor

• Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions
• Craft union federation founded in 1881
• Gompers chosen to lead it in 1882
• Compromise structure that had little impact
• 1886 decided to dissolve itself and turn its
  funds over to a new organization, the American
  Federation of Labor

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AFL Structure

• A union of union's - individual workers did not
  belong
• Issued exclusive jurisdiction charters to each
  constituent union
• Established State Federations and City Centrals

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AFL Functions

• Settle jurisdictional disputes
• Adopt limited legislative program
• Assist in supporting strikes - emphasis on
  economic action - no direct political
  participation or supporting of candidates
• This policy was called voluntarism

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Why Did AFL Succeed?

• AFL offered what unions wanted
• Coherent political voice in favor of limited
  objectives
• Protection from dual unionism - an obscenity in
  the trade union lexicon
• Support in periods of economic conflict without
  interference

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Strengths of AFL

• Its focus on narrow industrial objectives pure
  and simple unionism
• Its weakness!
• Why was its weakness a strength?

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III- The World of the Workers, 1880-1900

• What did George Pullman have to say about his
  willingness to use arbitration in the Pullman
  strike?
• Cannot arbitrate a fact that he knows to be true!
  

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Role of Government

• State legislatures or city councils occasionally
  tried to intervene on behalf of workers
• Courts responded by invalidating virtually all
  such laws
• Why?
• More frequently legislatures made strikes or
  picketing illegal

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Injunctions

• Railway strikes of 1877 and 1894 led to heavy
  reliance on injunctions to deter labor disputes
• Again employers property rights paramount
• Injunctions often issued without union even being
  heard
• Prohibited any activity in support of strike

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Working Class

• 1880 more than one million workers under the age
  of 16
• By 1900 ¾ of the population consisted of workers
  and their families
• Dramatic growth of immigration contributed to
  growth of working class and its growing diversity

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Working Class

• Growing need of families to send their daughters
  out to work
• Craft unions largely benefited highly skilled
  white male workers who already had relatively the
  highest wages and best conditions
• Segregation of the south
• Jim Crow system
• Lynching (2500 1885-1900)

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Discrimination

• Whites largely excluded African-Americans from
  their unions and from skilled jobs
• AFL initially tried to encourage or even require
  unions to admit African-Americans
• Eventually decided this was a hopeless task that
  would have to wait

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Next Time

• Begin discussion of labor in the progressive era