The Labor Movement

1
Chapter 20

• Section 4
• The Labor Movement

2
Workers Organize

• Key ? Why did workers organize?
• Poor working conditions 10-12 hour days no
  sick days unsafe and unhealthy working
  conditions low pay dull, repetitive jobs.
• Business owners ran factory cheaply.
• Entire families had to work to get by.
• Discontented workers formed labor unions
• Groups of workers that negotiated with business
  owners to obtain better wages and working
  conditions.

3
Early Unions

• Knights of Labor formed after the Civil War
  allowed women African Americans to join.
• 1873 Depression workers took pay cuts 1/5th
  lost jobs.
• Railroad Strike of 1877 stopped running the
  trains due to a 10 pay cut.
• 1884-1885 strike against railroad won strike.
• Hundreds of thousands of workers joined the
  union.

4
Racism

• Many unions excluded African Americans.
• Strikers were replaced by minorities who would
  work for less money.

5
The Struggle Between Business and Labor

• Key? - How did business leaders react to
  workers demands?
• Business leaders blamed the labor movement on
  socialism a social system in which the means of
  producing and distributing goods is owned
  collectively or by a centralized government.
• Anarchists the abolition of government.

6
Unions

• Haymarket Affair McCormick Harvester Company
  locked out strikers and hired strike breakers.
• Protest at Haymarket Square. several people
  wounded and died.
• Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation
  of Labor. (AFL)used, negotiations, strikes and
  boycotts to achieve its aims.
• Homestead Strike
• Pullman Strike Eugene V. Debs Grover Cleveland
  ended the strike.