The Labor Union Movement

Early Struggles, Early Defeats

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

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

Radical Solutions

• Socialist Party – Eugene Debs

http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=eugene+debs

Radical Solutions – Worldwide Union?