Lesson 20.4 : Workers Organize

1. Lesson 20.4: Workers Organize Today we will trace the beginnings of the labor movement through the founding of the American Federation of Labor

2. Vocabulary • strike – a work stoppage by workers who are demanding better pay or working conditions • socialism – economic system in which all members of society are equal owners of all businesses • union – organization of workers who stand together against their employer to get better pay or working conditions • utopian – perfect, but unrealistic

3. Check for Understanding • What are going to do today? • Why do most Americans think socialism is a bad idea? • Why do some workers like belonging to a union? • Why would some students welcome a teachers’ strike?

4. What We Already Know Workers had begun to form unions in the 1830s, but the Panic of 1837 made jobs scarce. Workers feared losing their jobs if they participated in strikes, so the young labor movement fell apart.

5. What We Already Know Steel baron Andrew Carnegie had become the richest man in the country by dealing ruthlessly with all his competitors.

6. What We Already Know The business cycle had repeatedly brought periods of economic boom and bust throughout the first century of America’s history.

7. One American’s Story • In 1867, Mary Harris Jones lost her husband and four children to yellow fever. • Moving to Chicago, she started a dressmaking business.

8. But the great Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed everything she owned. Instead of giving up in despair, Jones found a cause to fight for.

9. Jones became an effective labor leader. Workers loved her so much that they called her Mother Jones.

10. Workers Face Hardship • As business owners in the late 1800s made money, many workers suffered. • To keep profits high, many business owners ran their factories as cheaply as they could. • Some made workers buy their own tools. • Other owners refused to buy safety equipment.

11. If a factory became too crowded, the owner rarely built a larger one. • Instead, the owner sent part of the work to be done by smaller businesses. • Critics called these places sweatshops.

12. Sweatshops were places where workers labored long hours under poor conditions for low wages. • Often, children as young as five years old worked alongside adults. • Factory and sweatshop workers did the same jobs, such as sewing collars or making buttonholes, all day long.

13. Both factory and sweatshop owners kept wages low. • In the 1880s, the average weekly wage was less than $10. • This barely paid a family’s expenses. • If a worker missed work due to illness or had any unexpected bills, the family went into debt.

14. Most families could not survive unless everyone had a job. • Between 1890 and 1910, 20 percent of boys and 10 percent of girls under age 15 had full-time jobs.

15. Workers began to feel that only other working people could understand their troubles. • Discontented workers joined together to try to improve their lives, forming labor unions – groups of workers that negotiated with business owners to obtain better wages and working conditions.

16. Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

17. 14. What hardships did workers face in the late 1800s? • High union dues and expensive medical insurance • Unsafe working conditions and repetitive, boring tasks • Low wages and child labor • Crowded factories and cramped sweatshops • High costs for child care Choose all that are true!

18. Why did families send their children to work? • They needed the money to support the family. • Education was not considered very important in those days. • It was considered to build their character. • The children were eager to get out into the world.

19. How did workers try to improve working conditions? • By painting and making repairs to their workplaces in their spare time • By forming unions • By getting Congress to pass minimum wage laws • By forming political parties

20. Early Unions • The first labor unions began in the mid- 1800s but were unable to win many improvements for workers. • Some unions joined together to form national organizations. • One of these was the Knights of Labor.

21. The Knights of Labor was a loose federation of workers, both skilled and unskilled, from many different trades. • A skilled worker has spent many years perfecting his job skills under the careful eye of a master craftsman. • An unskilled worker is one whose only talent is a strong back or willing hands.

22. Unlike other labor organizations, they also let women and African Americans join. The Knights supported many social and political changes, such as women’s suffrage, racial equality, and civil rights for all.

23. Terence Powderly led the Knights of Labor • After Powderly took lead-ership in 1879, the Knights flourished, growing to 700,000. • He worked for better working conditions – an eight-hour day, the abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work, and the graduated income tax.

24. The Panic of 1873 Weakened the Labor Movement • Then, beginning in 1873, the United States fell into another serious economic depression. • Over the next four years, millions of workers took pay cuts, and about one-fifth lost their jobs.

25. TheRailroad Strike of 1877 • In July 1877, the Baltimore and Ohio (B & O) Railroad declared a wage cut of 10 percent. • On the day the pay cut was to go into effect, B & O workers refused to run the trains. • No labor union had called the strike: the workers themselves had stopped working on their own.

26. TheRailroad Strike of 1877 • As the news spread, workers in many cities and in other industries joined in. • This threw the country into turmoil.

27. In several cities, state militias battled angry mobs. • President Rutherford B. Hayes called out federal troops. • Before the two-week strike ended, dozens of people were killed.

28. The strike did not prevent the railroad pay cut, but it showed how angry American workers had become. • In 1884–1885, railroaders again went out on strike, this time against the Union Pacific and two other railroads.

29. The strikers, who were members of the Knights of Labor, gained nationwide attention when they won their strike. Hundreds of thousands of new workers joined the union, and its national prestige grew.

30. Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

31. How did the Knights of Labor differ from other unions? • It admitted only skilled workers. • It admitted unskilled as well as skilled workers. • It did not try to bring about utopian social changes. • It allowed women and African Americans to become members.

32. What were the effects of the depression of 1873 for workers? • Election of anti–union president Rutherford B. Hayes • Widespread pay cuts • Unemployment as high as 20 percent • The Railroad Strike of 1877 • Formation of the Knights of Labor

33. What events helped strengthen the Knights of Labor from the late 1870s to the mid-1880s? • the election of Terence Powderly to lead the union • Congress' adoption of the minimum wage law • the successful strike against the railroads in 1884-1885 • the acceptance of the 8-hour day • successful negotiation of the Pullman contract

34. What did the Railroad Strike of 1877 demonstrate? • It showed just how angry American workers had become. • It showed how strong the National Rail Workers' Union had become. • It showed how important it was for Congress to pass new anti-union laws. • It showed that the Knights of Labor had abandoned its commitment to non-violence.

35. Union Setbacks • The growth of labor unions scared many business leaders. • They blamed the labor movement on socialists and anarchists.

36. Business and government leaders feared socialism and anarchism. • Socialism is a system in which all members of society are equal owners of all businesses. • They share in the work and profits. • Anarchists are far more extreme, wanting to get rid of all governments.

37. Businessmen tried to break union power. • In Chicago in 1886, the McCormick Harvester Company locked out striking union members and hired strikebreakers to replace them. • On May 3, union members, strikebreakers, and police clashed, and one union member was killed.

38. Union members held a protest rally in Chicago at Haymarket Square. Held on a rainy evening the day after the McCormick clash, the rally was small.

39. The Haymarket Affair • As police moved in to end the meeting, an unknown person threw a bomb. • The bomb killed 7 police and wounded about 60. • The police then opened fire on the crowd, killing several people and wounding about a hundred.

40. Police arrested hundreds of union leaders, socialists, and anarchists. • After the Haymarket Square bombing, opposition to unions increased. • The membership in the Knights of Labor dropped rapidly—even though that wasn’t the union that had called the meeting at Haymarket Square.

41. Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

42. Why did business and government leaders fear unions? • The unions had strong political support from President Cleveland. • They blamed unionism for the depressions that had occurred in 1837, 1873, and 1894. • Many unions were beginning to create their own militia forces. • They believed unions encourage socialism and anarchism.

43. 15. What happened to unions after the protest at Haymarket Square? • Eugene V. Debs replaced Powderly as head of the Knights. • Public opposition to unions grew. • Union membership declined dramatically. • Hundreds of union leaders were arrested. • Socialists and anarchists took over leadership of the unions. Choose all that are true!

44. The Homestead and Pullman Strikes • Labor conflicts grew more bitter. • In 1892, Andrew Carnegie reduced wages at his steel mills in Homestead, Pennsylvania, but the union refused to accept the cut.

45. Carnegie’s company locked out the striking workers. • The company also announced that it would hire nonunion labor. • The company also hired 300 armed guards. • In response, the locked out workers gathered weapons.

46. The guards arrived on July 6, and a battle broke out that left ten people dead. • The Pennsylvania state militia began to escort the nonunion workers to the mills. • After four months, the strike collapsed, breaking the union.

47. The Panic of 1893 • In 1893, the country went into another economic depression, and many railroad companies went bankrupt. • To stay in business, the Pullman Palace Car Company, which made railroad cars, cut workers’ pay 25 percent.

48. Most Pullman workers lived in a town owned by the company itself. But despite the wage cut, Pullman did not lower the rent it charged workers to live in company housing. After their rent was deducted from the lower pay, many Pullman workers took home almost nothing.

49. In 1894, Pullman workers went on strike. • The Pullman Strike spread throughout the rail industry. • American Railway Union president Eugene V. Debs called on all U.S. railroad workers to refuse to handle Pullman cars.

50. The Pullman strike made rail traffic in much of the country come to a halt. • President Grover Cleveland called out federal troops, which ended the strike. • Debs was put in jail.