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Labor Union
• A formal organization of workers with several goals– Better wages– Better conditions– Less Hours– Job Security
2 Types
•Trade (Craft) Unions – only “skilled” workers
•Industrial Unions – all skilled and unskilled workers in an industry
Wage Earners
• By 1900– 2/3 of workers were wage earners– 10 hour days– 6 day weeks– Subsistence level wages– Supply (high -immigrants) & demand
– David Ricardo – “iron law of wages”
Women
• Workingmen’s earnings insufficient
• Women & children needed to increase household earnings
• 1/5 women worked for wages• Textile, garment, food processing• Clerical work becomes feminized >> wages and status fall
Year Strikes Establishments No. striking & involved
1881 471 2,928 129,521
1882 454 2,105 154,671
1883 478 2,759 149,763
1884 443 2,367 147,054
1885 645 2,284 242,705
1886 1,411 9,891 499,489
Power of Big Business
• Lockouts
• Blacklists
• Yellow-dog Contracts
• Private Armies
• State Militias
• Court Injunctions
Great RR Strike of 1877
• Depression >> wage cuts >> B&O RR strike spread along the track >> ½ million other workers join in >> Pres. Hayes calls out Fed Troops >> 100+ killed
• Results – A few companies made concessions– Most companies set out to break the unions
Knights of Labor
• Inclusive– Male & Female– Black? & White– Skilled & Unskilled
• 1870’s-1886• Terence V. Powderly • Abolish: child labor, trusts & monopolies
• Establish: workers cooperatives
Haymaker Bombing
• 1886 in Chicago• 1st May Day celebration
General strike for 8hr workday >> violence at McCormick’s Harvester plant >> workers hold public meeting on May 4 >> police sent to break up >> seven officers killed by bomb (anarchists)
Result: Knights loose popularity & membership
AFL (American Federation of Labor)
• Moderate Union• Skilled Workers• Collective Bargaining• Strikes• 1890-1915
– Raises began to rise– Hours fell
• Samuel Gompers
1890’s
• Homestead Strike - 1892– Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Plant– 20% wage cut – Lockout, private guards & strikebreakers (scabs) defeat steel unions
– Steel workers crushed until New Deal (1930’s)
1890’s Cont…
• Pullman Strike 1894– Wage cuts, fired union leaders>>Eugene Debs (American RR Union) directs RR workers not to handle Pullman cars
>> traffic halted nationwide>> Pres. Cleveland orders troops to keep mail trains running >> injunction issued
>> Debs arrested for ignoring injunction >> later forms Socialist Party in 1900