LABOR ISSUES

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LABOR ISSUES
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• GROWING WORK FORCE
• 14 million people immigrated to US between
  1860-1900.
• Most looking for work in industries
• 9 million people moved to cities to work in
  factories

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INDUSTRY

• Workers worked long hours for little pay.
• Work was repetitive and boring.
• Many work environments were hazardous.
• Many children worked in factories for longer
  hours than adults and in more dangerous
  conditions.
• Many workers lived in cramped, unsanitary
  tenement housing.

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RISE OF LABOR UNIONS

• Labor unions sprung up after the Civil War for
  people of the same trade
• Knights of LABOR 1869- pursued social reform
• 8 hour work days
• Equal payequal work
• End child labor
• 1885 strike against railroads- cut wages, some
  strikes turned violent
• End of union by 1890s

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• American Federation of Labor
• Led by Samuel Gompers
• Organized skilled workers in smaller unions based
  on craft
• By 1892 250,000 members (no women)
• Focused on wages, hours and conditions
• Used strikes and boycotts plus collective
  bargaining ( process in which workers negotiated
  as group with employers
• Encouraged a closed shop workplace (only union
  members work here)

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• Reaction to labor unions
• Employers disliked unions
• Forbade union meetings
• Fired union organizers
• Forced new employees to sign yellow dog contracts
• (never join a union)
• Refused of recognize union representatives

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RAILROAD STRIKE 1877

• 1st major unrest of labor
• July 14 1877 B O railroad announced a 10 wage
  cut
• Workers reacted with violence in Pittsburg,
  Chicago, St. Louis
• President Hayes sent in troops to put down the
  riots (1st time in history this happened)
• In Pittsburg -Soldiers fired on rioters and
  killing and wounding many
• 20,000 angry men and women set fire to the
  railroad company causing 5 million in damages
• Hayes again sent in troops this set precedent
  for federal troops to repress labor unrest

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HAYMARKET RIOT 1886

• Took place on May 4, 1886, in Chicago.
• Began when an unknown person threw a homemade
  bomb at police as they attempted to disperse a
  public meeting in support of striking workers.
  The blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the
  deaths of seven police officers and an unknown
  number of civilians.
• Eight anarchists were indicted for murder.
  Although the state presented no proof that any of
  the eight had thrown the bomb, four of those
  brought to trial were put to death. Of those
  remaining, two fled the country, one turned
  states evidence, and one committed suicide in
  prison.
• The causes of the incident are still
  controversial, although deep disagreements
  between business and working class people in late
  nineteenth century Chicagosuch as demands for an
  eight-hour dayare generally acknowledged as
  having caused the tragedy.
• To commemorate the incident, labor leaders began
  organizing May Day celebrations.

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• HAYMARKET SQUARE READINGS (J14-J19)
• As you read, write down 5 key/important ideas
  from each of the reading in your notes. (So
  you should have a total of 10 key ideas)

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PULLMAN STRIKE 1894

• Began on May 11, 1894, when factory workers at
  the Pullman Palace Car Company, in the Chicago
  area, walked out following failed negotiations
  over declining wages.
• Strikers appealed to the American Railway Union
  (ARU), which argued unsuccessfully for
  arbitration. On June 20, the ARU announced that,
  effective June 26, its membership would no longer
  work trains that included Pullman cars.
• By early July, and in the face of crippling
  railway stoppages, the federal government
  intervened, forbidding boycott activities and
  dispatching soldiers to Chicago and other
  locales.
• ARU President Eugene V. Debs was arrested and
  imprisoned for ignoring the federal governments
  injunctions. Unable to garner the support of
  other labor leaders, the boycott and the ARU were
  effectively
• broken by mid-July.
• Although public sentiment did not favor the
  boycott, George Pullman received broad criticism
  for his companys paternalistic policies and
  refusal to arbitrate. By and large, workers
  received the publics sympathy.

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• PULLMAN STRIKE Readings

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TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE

• Occurred on March 25, 1911, in New York Citys
  Asch Building, where the Triangle Shirtwaist
  Company occupied the top three of the buildings
  ten floors. The fire began shortly after 430
  p.m. in the eighth floor cutting room, where tons
  of fabric fed the flames.
• While most of the workers on the eighth and
  tenth floors escaped, dozens of workers on the
  ninth floor were trapped, unable to open a door
  that could have led to their escape.
• 146 workers died in about fifteen minutes. Some
  of the deaths were caused by the collapse of the
  rear fire escape. Some workers tried to slide
  down the elevator cables, but lost their grip and
  fell to their death. Others jumped to their death
  from the buildings windows.
• Company owners were initially charged with
  manslaughter, but were later acquitted. In 1914,
  the court ordered them to pay damages to the
  families of twenty-three victims who had sued.
• The tragedy led to efforts to improve factory
  safety and it served as a catalyst for organizing
  garment workers.

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• TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST READINGS

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HOMESTEAD 1892

• Occurred in Homestead, Pennsylvania (near
  Pittsburgh) between the
• Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
  (the AA) and the Carnegie
• Steel Company.
• ? In 1889 workers negotiated a three-year
  contract, which included a sliding
• wage scale based on the market price for steel.
  As the contract neared expiration,
• Andrew Carnegie, the plants owner, traveled to
  Scotland, leaving manager
• Henry Clay Frick in charge.
• ? Negotiations between workers and Frick failed.
  On June 30, 1892, the day the contract was to
  expire, workers were locked out of the plant and
  a strike began.
• ? Workers blocked the plant to prevent scabs, a
  worker who replaces a Union worker during a
  strike, from entering. In response, Frick
  arranged to have 300 strike-breaking detectives
  from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency
  (known as Pinkertons) provide security for the
  plant.
• ? When the Pinkertons attempted to arrive on July
  6 under cover of darkness, workers sounded alarms
  and people gathered to meet the force. The
  Pinkertons
• opened fire three Pinkertons and seven workers
  died, and others were
• injured.
• Six days later the National Guard arrived.
• ? On November 17, day laborers and mechanics
  voted to return to work.
• Three days later, the prohibition on returning to
  work for the company
• was lifted. The plant rehired some as non-union
  workers, but
• blacklisted others.

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• READINGS OF HOMESTEAD STRIKE

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COXEYS ARMY

• Refers to a protest march by unemployed American
  workers, led by the populist Jacob S. Coxey.
  While its official name was the Commonweal in
  Christ, the movement took its nickname from its
  leaders name.
• The purpose of the march was to protest the
  unemployment caused by the economic depression of
  1893 and to urge the government to create public
  works jobs.
• The march began in Massillon, Ohio, and it
  included 100 men. Although Coxey predicted that
  this number would swell to 100,000, the ?army
  numbered only 500 by the time it reached
  Washington, D.C.
• When Coxeys Army reached the capital on April
  30, 1894, Coxey and other movement leaders were
  arrested for walking on the grass of the U.S.
  Capitol. The rest of the army then scattered.
• Some of the movements more militant leaders
  went on to head ?armies? of their own in the
  Pacific Northwest, where many of the protestors
  were unemployed railroad workers.

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• COXEYS READING