The Growth of the American Labor Movement

1. The Growth of the American Labor Movement

2. Labor Unions Emerge • Northern wages generally higher than Southern • Exploitation, unsafe conditions unite workers across regions • Most workers have 12 hour days, 6 day workweeks • - perform repetitive, mind-dulling tasks • - no vacation, sick leave, injury compensation • To survive, families need all member to work, including children • Sweatshops, tenement workshops often only jobs for women, children • - require few skills; pay lowest wages Continued . . . NEXT

3. The Changing American Labor Force

4. Child Labor

5. Child Labor

6. “Galley Labor”

7. Labor Unrest: 1870-1900

8. The Molly Maguires(1875) JamesMcParland

9. Management vs. Labor “Tools” of Management “Tools” of Labor • “scabs”- hired replacements • P. R. campaign • Pinkertons- personal army • lockout- close work • Blacklisting- • yellow-dog contracts- not allowed to join a Union • court injunctions- troops • open shop- only hire non-Union workers • boycotts • sympathy demonstrations • picketing • closed shops- Only Union workers • organized strikes- not working

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

11. The Corporate “Bully-Boys”: PinkertonAgents

12. A Striker Confronts a SCAB!

13. Early Labor Organizing • National Labor Union—first large-scale national organization • 1868, NLU gets Congress to give 8-hour day to civil servants • Local chapters reject blacks; Colored NLU forms • Great RR strike of 1877 brings an end to the union NEXT

14. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: • Dangers of RR work, 2,000 workers die a year, 30,000 injured • Wages: $957 Engineers, $575 Conductors, $212 Brakemen, $124 Laborers

15. Brought on by the Panic of 1873 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad strike spreads to other lines Governors say impeding interstate commerce; federal troops intervene 100’s die The Great Strike of 1877

17. Knights of Labor Terence V. Powderly An injury to one is the concern of all!

18. Goals of the Knights of Labor • Anyone could join, women, blacks, anarchists, socialists… • Fought for Eight-hour workday. • Goal to create workers’ cooperatives and ownership, change capitalism. • Willing to use violence, boycotts, strikes, and mass meetings • Abolition of child and prison labor. • Safety codes in the workplace.

20. National Strike- 12 to 8 hour workday Anarchists Meet on the Lake Front in 1886

21. Haymarket Riot (1886) McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.

22. 3,000 gather at Chicago’s Haymarket Square, protest police brutality Violence ensues; 8 charged with inciting riot, convicted Public opinion turns against labor movement, see it as radical The Haymarket Affair

23. Haymarket Martyrs

24. Governor John Peter Altgeld

25. May Day, also called International Workers' Day or Labor Day, is a commemoration of the execution of the Haymarket martyrs who were arrested after the Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, which occurred on May 4 but was the culmination of labor unrest that had begun on May 1. Consequently this May Day became established as an anarchist and socialist holiday, and in this form, May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the working class and labor movement. Although May Day observance began in the United States, it is not officially nor popularly recognized as a holiday there; instead May 1 was officially designated by the U.S. Congress as Loyalty Day in 1958, because of the association of May Day with communism. May Day

26. The American Federation of Labor: 1886 Samuel Gompers

27. How the AF of L Would Help the Workers • Limited membership to skilled workers. • Goal to get better wages • Maintained a national strike fund. • Prevented disputes among the many craft unions. • Mediated disputes between management and labor. • Pushed for closed shops. • Conservative labor union, worked within the system

28. Sort terms on pg. 157 onto the chart on pg. 158 • Pg. 163 Doc D, What pattern do you notice in the shaded part of the graph? • Pg. 165, Doc G, Looking at the years 1870 to 1900, how successful was the labor movement in that period? • Looking at the info on Pg. 172, was the national gov. more sympathetic to business or workers? • Pg, 177, Doc. C, What is the duty of a wealthy man? • Pg. 178, Doc D & E, What is the meaning of the cartoon? • Do the labor chart on pg, 187 • Pg. 188, What does the cartoon say about American attitudes toward organized labor?

29. Homestead Steel Strike (1892) Homestead Steel Works The Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steel Workers 1892, Carnegie Steel workers locked out over pay cuts

30. Workers win battle against Pinkertons; National Guard later reopens plant “The Pinkertons are coming! The Pinkertons are coming!

31. Attempted Assassination! Henry Clay Frick Alexander Berkman Steelworkers do not remobilize for 45 years

32. Johnstown Flood, 1889 • Flood killed 2,209 people • Water strength of the Mississippi River • South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club founded by Frick • Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road so Frick could drive his carriage over it, and putting a fish screen in the spillway • These alterations are thought to have increased the vulnerability of the dam. • The members built cottages and a clubhouse to create the, an exclusive and private mountain retreat. • Membership grew to include more than 50 wealthy Pittsburgh steel, coal, and railroad industrialists

33. Carnegie-Frick Feud

34. 3 out of 15 million labor force were unemployed 642 banks failed 16,000 businesses closed down 2nd worst depression in US history Panic 1893

35. A “CompanyTown”: Pullman, IL

37. Pullman Cars A Pullman porter

38. The Pullman Strike of 1894

39. Pullman lays off 3,000, cuts wages but not rents; workers strike Pullman refuses arbitration; violence ensues; federal troops sent b/c restrained movement of mail Debs (United Railways Workers Union leader) jailed, most workers fired, many blacklisted Debs become a radical Socialist leader after this experience The Pullman Company Strike

40. President Grover Cleveland If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered!

41. The Pullman Strike of 1894 Government by injunction! • First time ever the government used an injunction (A court order forcing labor to go back to work) to break a strike • The government made striking, an activity not previously defined as illegal, a crime

42. The Socialists Eugene V. Debs

44. International Workers of the World (“Wobblies”) Eye Wobble Wobble" Also known as the "Chinese Restaurant Owner Theory", In Vancouver, in 1911, we had a number of Chinese members, and one restaurant keeper would trust any member for means. He could not pronounce the letter "w" (due to the "l" sounds in the pronunciation of the letter), but called it "wobble" and would ask, "you Eye Wobble Wobble?" and when the [red] card was shown credit was unlimited. Thereafter the laughing term amongst us was "I Wobbly Wobbly".

45. “Big Bill” Haywood of theIWW Violence was justified to overthrow capitalism.

46. Socialism and the IWW • Some labor activists turn to socialism: - government control of business, property - equal distribution of wealth • Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, forms 1905 • Organized by radical unionists, socialists; include African Americans • Industrial unions give unskilled workers dignity, solidarity NEXT

50. Joe Hill-IWW, Songwriter, wrongfully convicted of murder Just prior to his execution, Hill had written to Bill Haywood, an IWW leader, saying, "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize... Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah • My will is easy to decideFor there is nothing to divideMy kin don't need to fuss and moan"Moss does not cling to rolling stone"My body? Oh, if I could chooseI would to ashes it reduceAnd let the merry breezes blowMy dust to where some flowers growPerhaps some fading flower thenWould come to life and bloom again.This is my Last and final Will.Good Luck to All of youJoe Hill