Workers Organize The Labor Movement

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Workers OrganizeThe Labor Movement

• Effects of Industrialization
• More workers in the work force
• Loss of personal freedoms
• Gap grew between workers and employers
• Child Labor
• Sweatshops spread homes used as factories

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Unions Their Activities

• National Labor Union
• Made up of local unions
• Admitted women and blacks
• 1868 Eight Hour day law passed for government
  workers
• Disbanded after the Depression of 1873
• First Nationwide Strike - 1877
• B O RR (Baltimore and Ohio) management cut
  wages and increased workday workers organize
  the strike
• Federal Troops ordered in to break up strike
• Companies began to organize against unions
• Yellow-Dog Contracts implemented new workers
  forced to sign a pledge NOT TO JOIN UNIONS
• Hired strikebreakers and new workers called
  Scabs

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1882 New York freight handlers strike.
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Early Conflict

• Knights of Labor
• Organized in 1869 as an organization of
  individual workers, not unions a secret
  organization
• Open to all producers regardless of gender,
  race or skill
• Lawyers, Bankers, gamblers, and liquor dealers
  were excluded
• Arbitration negotiation was preferred over
  striking
• 1879 Terence Powderly named its leader ended
  its secrecy
• Cooperative labor where workers would own the
  means of production
• Haymarket Riot 1886 McCormick Reaper Works
• Albert Parson, August Spies, and Samuel Fielden
  argue in Chicago for an Eight-hour Day.
• Workers meet in the haymarket an area where hay
  is bought and sold west of downtown A bomb
  explodes and police open fire killing some
  policemen
• Parsons and Spies were arrested, convicted of the
  bombing and hanged. A total of four will be
  hanged, one will commit suicide and three will be
  pardoned.
• Public opinion turns against the Knights of Labor
• 1893 Governor of Illinois John Peter Altgeld
  investigates and then gives full pardons to
  remaining defendants

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L to RTop Albert Parson, Lucy Parsons, Samuel
Fielden, August Spies, and Governor John Peter
Altgeld
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Riot at the McCormick Reaper Works May 3, 1886
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Haymarket Memorial, 2004Commissioned by the City
of Chicago, The Illinois Federation of Labor
History, Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and
the Chicago Department of Transportation. Bronze
monument commemorating the 1886 Chicago Haymarket
riot, an internationally significant and volatile
event in the struggle between business, labor,
and law enforcement.
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Terence Powderly (center), Irish-born head of the
Knights of Labor, which emerged as America's
first large national union in the 1880s.Source
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
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Des Plaines and Randolph
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Haymarket Riot
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Workers Unite

• American Federation of Labor
• Samuel Gompers organizes the AFL a federation
  of Unions
• Only skilled workers were admitted
• Women and Blacks EXCLUDED
• Craft Unions developed for workers skilled in a
  particular craft artisans
• AFL avoided political activity and used
  collective bargaining representing all workers
  and negotiating a contract with management
• Interested in Bread and Butter Issues like
  shorter hours and better pay
• Industrial Unions
• Organized all workers in the same industry
• Eugene V. Debs organized the American Railway
  Union
• ARU collapses when federal troops along with
  injunctions court orders to stop their activity
  are used to halt strikes
• 1905- Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Big
  Bill Haywood

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Samuel Gompers (below, left) British born.
Thought that reduction in the work day would
make him (the worker, a man) a better citizen, a
better father, a better husband, a better man in
general.strikes should be the last means which
workingmen resort to to protect
themselvesagainst the greed of the employers.
Eugene V. Debs (above and left - speaking) served
as the vocal leader of the Socialist Party of
America Presidential candidate for the Social
Democratic Party 1900 and the American Socialist
Party 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920
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Women in the Union Movement

• 1910 Women made up 21 of the labor force
• Mary Harris Jones Mother Jones organized
  miners wives when there were strikes Became
  active in the union movement when her Chicago
  dress shop burned - 1871 Known also for her
  childrens march on President T. Roosevelts
  Oyster Bay N.Y. home - 1902
• Pauline Newman organized the Ladies Garment
  Workers Union

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Why Early Labor Unions Failed

• Language barriers between workers
• Temporary nature of work
• No safety net
• Management reluctance to recognize led to their
  desire to kill union organizing
• Yellow Dog Contracts strike breakers
  scabs
• Blacklisting union agitators
• Military and Police action against unions
• Government often sided with Management in
  labor disputes

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• Dark cramped shops made exhausting work still
  more difficult and dangerous.  The end of a 10 or
  12 hour day was only the beginning of a long walk
  or ride home to scant food and crowded rooms.

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• Unethical subcontractors took advantage of
  newly-arrived immigrants who needed a job badly,
  forcing them to work endless hours for the right
  to keep the job.  Supervisors watched workers
  continually, docking pay for arriving a few
  minutes late, talking, missing Sunday shifts, or
  taking too long in the rest room.  On the other
  hand, a 56-hour week might stretch to 70 hours
  without overtime pay.  Photo credit Lewis Hine

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
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Fire fighters arrived soon after the alarm was
sounded but ladders only reached the 6th floor
and pumps could not raise water to the highest
floors of the 10-story building.  Still the fire
was quickly controlled and was essentially
extinguished in half an hour.  In this fire-proof
building, 146 men, women, and children lost their
lives and many others were seriously injured.
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• The tenth floor of the factory housed the offices
  of company executives, the switchboard, 40
  garment pressers and the packing and shipping
  room.  After receiving a warning call from the
  8th floor most were able to escape over the roof
  to the adjacent New York University building with
  the aid of faculty members and students.  Of the
  70 people on that floor, all were saved but 1.

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• The plan of the factory 9th floor shows the
  layout of 75 foot long tables in relation to
  windows, elevators and stairs.  High ceilings
  figured into the space-per-person calculations
  allowing owners to employ 240 people in a
  relatively small floor space.  Aisles were
  blocked  by chairs and work baskets leaving open
  floor space so limited that it was necessary to
  climb over work tables to get to the exits. 

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• Labor unions, religious communities, political
  groups and social reform organizations assembled
  to mourn the lost lives and demand real progress
  in worker protection.  At times their differences
  in methods and priorities threatened to take back
  gains made in public awareness and the commitment
  to act.