The early labor movement in the USA.

1. Labor and Big Business
• By Jack Garrity

2. • Book pages 454-461
• At Edmodo

3. Working in the United States
• Workers had difficult lives in industrializing America.

4. Working in the United States
• Machines replaced skilled labor making work monotonous.

5. Working in the United States
• Workers had dangerous and unhealthy places to work.

6. Working in the United States
• Big machines injured workers.

7. Working in the United States
• One out of 12 men working in the steel factories died at work.

8. Working in the United States
• Workers breathed toxic fumes, dust, lint.

9. Working in the United States
• On the other hand, industrialism raised the standard of living.

10. Working in the United States
• While only a few entrepreneurs became super rich, the average worker’s pay rose 50 percent
between 1860 and 1890.

11. Working in the United States
• However, the uneven division of income between the rich and working class caused resentment among
workers.

12. Working in the United States
• However, the uneven division of income between the rich and working class caused resentment among
workers.

13. Working in the United States
• However, the uneven division of income between the rich and working class caused resentment among
workers.

14. Working in the United States
• However, the uneven division of income between the rich and working class caused resentment among
workers.

15. Working in the United States
• While Rockefeller made 374 billion, the average industrial worker made 22¢ per hour and worked 59
hours per week (674.96 a year) in 1900.

16. Working in the United States
• While Rockefeller made 374 billion, the average industrial worker made 22¢ per hour and worked 59
hours per week (674.96 a year) in 1900.

17. Working in the United States
• The economy of scale led to deflation, putting workers and employers at odds with each other.

18. • Deflation: when money’s value rises, prices drop relative to wages

19. Working in the United States
• Throughout the late 1800s, deflation caused prices to fall, which increased the buying power of
workers’ wages.

20. Working in the United States
• Companies cut wages regularly in the late 1800s,yet prices fell even faster.

21. Working in the United States
• Workers believed that companies wanted to pay them less money for the same work.

22. Working in the United States
• Many workers decided to organize unions, which could bargain collectively and negotiate higher wages
and better working conditions.

23. Early Unions
Two types of industrial workers craft workers and common laborers.

24. Early Unions
Craft workers had special skills and training, and made more money. They included machinists, iron
molders, stonecutters, glassblowers, shoemakers, printers, carpenters, etc.

25. Early Unions
Craft workers had special skills and training, and made more money. They included machinists, iron
molders, stonecutters, glassblowers, shoemakers, printers, carpenters, etc.

26. Early Unions
Craft workers had special skills and training, and made more money. They included machinists, iron
molders, stonecutters, glassblowers, shoemakers, printers, carpenters, etc.

27. Early Unions
• Common laborers had few skills and received lower wages.

28. Early Unions
• In the 1830s, craft workers formed trade unions—unions limited to people with specific skills.

29. Early Unions
• By 1873 there were 32 national trade unions. The largest and most successful were the Iron Molders’
International Union, the International Typographical Union, and the Knights of St. Crispin (shoemakers).

30. Industry Opposes Unions
• Trade unions forced big business to recognize and negotiate with them, as they represented workers
whose skills they needed..

31. Industry Opposes Unions
• However, businesses and employers generally regarded unions as illegitimate conspiracies that interfered
with their property rights.

32. Industry Opposes Unions
• Owners of large corporations opposed industrial unions, which united craft workers and common laborers.

33. Industry Opposes Unions
• Employers made workers take oaths or sign contracts promising not to join a union.

34. Industry Opposes Unions
• They hired detectives to go undercover and identify union organizers. The fired workers who tried to
organize a union or strike and put them on a blacklist—a list of “troublemakers

35. Industry Opposes Unions
• Once blacklisted, laborers could not get a job, unless they moved to another state, or changed their
names.

36. Industry Opposes Unions
• If workers formed a union, companies often used a lockout to break it. They locked workers out of the
property and refused to pay them.

37. Industry Opposes Unions
• If the union called a strike, employers might fire them all and hire new workers, or strikebreakers called
scabs.

38. Political and Social Opposition
• Union workers faced legal and social challenges and problems.

39. Political and Social Opposition
• No laws gave workers “the right to organize” nor requiring owners to negotiate with them.

40. Political and Social Opposition
• Judges and courts usually ruled strikes “conspiracies in restraint of trade”, fining union leaders or putting
them in jail.

41. Political and Social Opposition
• Socially, unions suffered from an association with the ideas of Karl Marx.

42. Political and Social Opposition
• In the late 1800s, Marxism, had become very influential in Europe.

43. Political and Social Opposition
• In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Engels argue that class struggle propels history forward.

44. Political and Social Opposition
• Marxists believed that workers would eventually revolt, seize control of the factories (means of
production), ending the rule of the factory owners (bourgeoisie) and capitalism.

45. Political and Social Opposition
• Marxists believed the government would be replaced by communism and the economy would become
socialist.

46. Political and Social Opposition
• Marxists claimed that after the revolution, the government would seize all private property and create a
socialist society where wealth was evenly divided.

47. Political and Social Opposition
• Marx thought, the state would wither away, leaving a Communist society without classes.

48. Political and Social Opposition
• Many labor leaders agreed with Marx, a few supported anarchism.

49. • Anarchism a political theory to end forms of government, replacing
it with a society based on voluntary and free cooperation of
individuals and groups.

50. Political and Social Opposition
• Anarchists believe that society does not need any government.

51. Political and Social Opposition
• Anarchists believed that violence would start a revolution.

52. Political and Social Opposition
• In the late 1800s, anarchists assassinated government officials and set off bombs all across Europe.

53. Political and Social Opposition
• In the late 1800s, anarchists assassinated government officials and set off bombs all across Europe.

54. Political and Social Opposition
• As Marxist and anarchist ideas spread in Europe, tens of thousands of immigrants arrived in the United
States.

55. Political and Social Opposition
• Nativism increased suspicion of unions by associating immigrants with revolution and anarchism.

56. • Nativism: a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to
immigrants.

57. Political and Social Opposition
• Suspicion of unions led officials to use the courts, police, and the army to crush strikes and break up
unions.

58. The Struggle to Organize
• Workers rarely succeeded in creating large industrial unions.

59. The Struggle to Organize
• Usually, attempts ended with violence and bloodshed (workers).

62. The Struggle to Organize
• In 1868 William Sylvis, president of the Iron Molders Union and leader of the National Labor Union,
wrote to Karl Marx to encourage Marx’s work and express his own hopes:
• “Our cause is a common one. . . . Go ahead in the good work that you have undertaken, until the most
glorious success crowns your efforts . . . Moneyed power is fast eating up the substance of the people.
We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can we will win through the ballot box; if not, we
will resort to sterner means. A little bloodletting is sometimes necessary in desperate causes.”
•

63. The Struggle to Organize
• Mother Jones Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (1830–1930) emigrated to the United States from Ireland at
the age of five.

64. The Struggle to Organize
• Jones became the nation’s most famous union leader after her husband and 4 children died from yellow
fever.

65. The Struggle to Organize
• Jones moved to Chicago, opened a dressmaker’s shop, seeing the “poor shivering wretches, jobless
and hungry.”

66. The Struggle to Organize
• At night she attended rallies for the Knights of Labor, then organized the United Mine Workers.

67. The Struggle to Organize
• She successfully organized mine unions in West Virginia

68. The Struggle to Organize
• She traveled from camp to camp along railroad tracks or rode atop farm wagons, sleeping in a tent.

69. The Struggle to Organize
• Jones began her speeches slowly, encouraging her listeners to “look on yourselves, and upon each
other. Let us consider this together for I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.” Then Mother
Jones would make an impassioned plea for the miners to join the union. “You pity yourselves, but you do
not pity your brothers, or you would stand together to help one another.”

70. The Struggle to Organize
• Mother Jones went to jail many times, brought thousands in to the miners unions. After meeting
Rockefeller, he visited Colorado mines, saw the horrible conditions, and introduced reforms.

71. • Jones brought the problem of child labor and an 8 hour work day into the
national conversation.

72. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• In 1873 a severe recession known as the Panic of 1873 struck the American economy and companies cut
wages.

73. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• In July 1877, as the recession continued, several railroads announced another round of wage cuts,
triggering the first nationwide strike and protest.

74. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• Railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, walked off the job and blocked the tracks. As word spread,
railroad workers across the country walked off the job.

75. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• 80,000 railroad workers in 11 states shut down 2/3 of the nation’s railways.

76. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• 80,000 railroad workers in 11 states shut down 2/3 of the nation’s railways.

77. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• The governors of several states called out their militias to stop the violence. In many places, gun battles
erupted between the militia and striking workers.

78. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• President Hayes ordered the army to open the railroad between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

79. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• President Hayes sent troops to Chicago. The army restored order, leaving more than 100 people dead,
and millions of dollars of destroyed property.

80. The Knights of Labor
• The US army ended the Great Railroad Strike and order was restored.

81. The Knights of Labor
• The Great Railroad Strike’s failure strengthened many labor leaders belief that workers needed better
organization.

82. The Knights of Labor
• By the late 1870s, workers made the Knights of Labor the first nationwide industrial union.

83. The Knights of Labor
• The Knights wanted
• 1. an eight-hour workday and a government bureau of labor statistics.
• 2. Equal pay for women.
• 3. The abolition of child labor
• 4. The creation of worker-owned factories.

84. The Knights of Labor
• The Knights’ leaders initially used boycotts instead of strikes.

85. The Knights of Labor
• They also supported arbitration, a process in which an impartial third party helps workers and management
reach an agreement.

86. The Knights of Labor
• In the early 1880s, the Knights began to use strikes, and they achieved great success initially.

87. The Knights of Labor
• After striking Knights convinced one of Jay Gould’s railroads to reverse wage cuts in 1885, membership in
the union leapt from 100,000 to 700,000 in less than a year.

88. The Knights of Labor
• But, an event known as the Haymarket Riot undermined the Knights’ reputation, and members left the
union the next year.

89. The Haymarket Riot
• In 1886 organizers called for a nationwide strike on May 1 to show support for an 8 hour workday.

90. The Haymarket Riot
• The nationwide strike was violent in Chicago.

91. The Haymarket Riot
• On May 3, a clash between strikers and police in Chicago left one striker dead. The next night, an
anarchist group held a meeting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, protesting the killing.

92. The Haymarket Riot
• Around 3,000 people gathered, someone threw a bomb at police when they entered the area.

93. The Haymarket Riot
• The police opened fire, and workers shot back. Seven police officers and four workers were killed.

94. The Haymarket Riot
• Police arrested eight people for the bombing, seven German immigrants anarchists, horrifying people
across the country.

95. The Haymarket Riot
• All eight men were convicted (weak evidence), and four were later executed.

96. The Haymarket Riot
• Unfortunately for the Knights of Labor, one of the men arrested was a member of the union. The incident
badly hurt the Knights’ reputation, and they began to lose members rapidly.

97. The Pullman Strike
• In 1893, railroad workers created the American Railway Union (ARU) under the leadership of Eugene V.
Debs.

98. The Pullman Strike
• One of the unionized companies, the Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois, fired 3 workers for
complaining in 1894.

99. The Pullman Strike
• The workers complained as they lived in a factory owned town, and had to buy food at company stores,
and the company cut their wages.

100. The Pullman Strike
• The wage cuts made it difficult for workers to pay their rent or the high prices at the company stores.

101. The Pullman Strike
• After Pullman fired three complaining workers, a strike began.

102. The Pullman Strike
• The ARU stopped handling Pullman cars all across the United States and boycotted Pullman cars.

104. The Pullman Strike
• Railroad managers arranged for U.S. mail cars to be attached to the Pullman cars, forcing strikers to
interfere with the U.S. mail, a violation of federal law.

105. The Pullman Strike
• President Grover Cleveland sent in troops, claiming it was his responsibility to keep the mail running.

106. The Pullman Strike
• Next, a federal court issued an injunction, or formal court order, directing the union to halt the boycott, both
the strike at Pullman and the ARU collapsed.

107. The American Federation of Labor
• Although large-scale industrial unions failed, trade unions continued to grow.

108. The American Federation of Labor
• In 1886 delegates from over 20 of the nation’s trade unions organized the American Federation of Labor
(AFL), led by Samuel Gompers.

109. The American Federation of Labor
• Samuel Gompers approach to labor relations—which he called “plain and simple” unionism—helped unions
to become accepted in American society.

110. The American Federation of Labor
• Gompers believed that unions should stay out of politics and rejected socialist and communist ideas.

111. The American Federation of Labor
• Gompers fought for higher wages and better working conditions.

112. The American Federation of Labor
• Gompers fought for higher wages and better working conditions by using strikes, but preferred negotiation

113. The American Federation of Labor
• The AFLhad three main goals.
• 1. make companies recognize unions and collective bargaining.
• 2. companies could only hire union members.
• 3. An eight-hour workday.
•

114. The American Federation of Labor
• By 1900, the AFL was the biggest union in the country, with over 500,000 members, bout 15 percent of all
workers. So, as 1900s began, 85 percent of workers remained unorganized.

115. Working Women
• After the Civil War, more women entered the laborer job place.

116. Working Women
• By 1900 women made up more than 18 percent of the labor force.

117. Working Women
• 19th Century society limited women to a few professions. Roughly one-third of women worked as domestic
servants.

118. Working Women
• Another third worked as teachers, nurses, sales clerks, and secretaries.

119. Working Women
• The remaining third were industrial workers, but they were employed in light industrial jobs like the garment
industry and food processing plants.

120. Working Women
• Women were paid less than men even when they performed the same jobs.

121. Working Women
• Society assumed a woman had a man helping to support her, either her father or her husband, and that a
man needed higher wages to support a family.

122. Working Women
• For this reason, most unions, including the AFL, excluded women.

123. Working Women
• In 1903 Mary Kenney O’Sullivan and Leonora O’Reilly established a separate union for women.

124. Working Women
• With the help of Jane Addams and Lillian Wald ( founders of the settlement house movement) they
established the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL).

125. Working Women
• The WTUL pushed for an eight-hour day, the creation of a minimum wage, an end to evening work for
women, and the abolition of child labor.

126. Working Women
• The WTUL held strikes and collected funds to support women on strike.