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 2 nd 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 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 Homestead Steel Works
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