US History, Feb 19 • Entry Task: Read the small slip of paper

with your table and try to come up with a group answer (write on white board).

• Announcements: – BAND students – I could use a few more

quotes for the yearbook page – any volunteers?

– Today: fill out notes/assignment in class – Chilson is gone tomorrow and Mon,

Registration is on Tues

Questions to answer today:

• What were working/living conditions like for people in America in the Gilded Age?

• How do Labor Unions form? • What are “tools” of management?

Labor? • What are pros/cons of labor unions?

The Changing American Labor Force

Before the Civil War, the worker was in a small plant whose owner knew their name, asked about their family. Factory hands later were employed by a corporation – machines replaced workers and people were depersonalized, bodiless, soulless, and sometimes conscienceless.

“There are 47 states and then the Soviet of Washington” – joked Postmaster General

James Farley

• http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/

Child Labor

Working Conditions in post-Civil War America

• Average Length of work – 10-12 hrs; 6 days/wk

• Pay – Anywhere from $1.25-3 (man); women – generally half, children – as low as $0.27 for 14-hour day

• No regulations on child labor • Industrial Safety – little concern on the

part of employers – 1913 – 25,000 fatalities; 700,000 injured; – Diseases common – black lung (coal)

Triangle Shirtwaist

Factory Fire 1911

• 146 workers are killed

Living Standards

• By 1880s, necessary income for average living standard: $500 – About 40% of working class families

earned less than this; about ¼ of them were in total destitution

• What were higher paying jobs? Iron rollers, locomotive engineers, pattern makers, glass blowers

The Hand That Will Rule the World: One Big Union

Early Labor Unions

• Knights of Labor (1869) • American Federation of Labor

(1886) – after Haymarket Square Riot

• International Workers of the World (1906) – more radical

Labor Unrest: 1870-1900

• 1880s – 10,000 strikes! • 1880-1890 – strikers won 50% of battles • Between 1875-1910, state troops called 500x to

deal with labor unrest

Management vs. Labor

“Tools” of Management

“Tools” of Labor

“scabs”

P. R. campaign

Pinkertons

lockout

blacklisting

yellow-dog contracts

court injunctions

open shop

boycotts

sympathy demonstrations

informational picketing

closed shops

organized strikes

“wildcat” strikes

A Striker Confronts a SCAB!

Jay Gould supposedly said, “ I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.”

The Corporate “Bully-Boys”: Pinkerton

Agents

The Tournament of Today: A Set-to Between Labor and

Monopoly

The “Formula”

unions + violence + strikes + socialists + immigrants = anarchists

The Socialists

Eugene V. Debs

American Railway Union

Ran for President 5x, once from prison!

Pros and Cons of Labor Unions

PROS

CONS

Workers Benefits Today

The Rise & Decline of Organized Labor

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

International Workers of the World (“Wobblies”)

• 100,000 membership at the peak (1923)

• November 5, 1916 – Incident in Everett between IWW and Everett citizen deputies

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 • 10% wage cut for

Baltimore & Ohio RR workers – 2nd cut

• Strike spread to Eastern cities; 45 days of violence between troops & strikers

• President Hayes called events an “insurrection”

Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

The Amalgamated Association of

Iron & Steel Workers

Homestead Steel Works

• General Manager Henry C. Frick – cut wages

• 3,000 workers met to strike; locked out – 14 hours of gunfire with Pinkertons

• Skilled workers replaced by immigrants

Big Corporate Profits!

Attempted Assassination!

Henry Clay Frick

Alexander Berkman

The Pullman Strike of 1894

A “Company Town”: Pullman, IL

-Called “debt slavery” – automatic deductions from paycheck

-1893 – 1/3 workers fired; wages lowered by 30% (rent stayed the same)

-Eugene Debs (ARU) led strike; By June 1894 – 50,000 workers

-Federal injunction: US Marshals & 2,000 troops break it up

-$80 million property damage

Pullman Cars

A Pullman porter

President Grover Cleveland

If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card

will be delivered!

The Pullman Strike of 1894

Government by injunction!

International Workers of the World (“Wobblies”)

“Big Bill” Haywood of the IWW

M Violence was justified to overthrow capitalism.

Triangle Shirtwaist

Factory Fire 1911

• 146 workers are killed

Lawrence, MA Strike: 1912

The “Bread & Roses” Strike

DEMANDS:

15¢/hr. wage increase.

Double pay for overtime.

No discrimination against strikers.

An end to “speed-up” on the assembly line.

An end to discrimination against foreign immigrant workers.

Lawrence, MA Strike: 1912

Authorities in Lawrence try to stop children from being sent to NYC: violence is caught by the press

Labor Union Membership