5.4Unions and the Fight Against Big Business

A Worker’s Life

The Good News• For many in the new working class of America, life

was good. • Industrialization led to huge rise in the average

American’s standard of living• Between 1860 and 1890, the average worker’s wage

rose 50%

A Worker’s Life

The Bad News• 6-7 days/week; 13—15 hours per day; 22 cents/hr• Injuries due to new, crude technology• If injured, no worker’s comp….instead street life• Women and children expected to work as well

Child and Women Miners

1911 Asch Factory Fire-- The Story of the Triangle Waistcoat Company

• Garment factory in NY city• To save money the owner only

built 2 stairwells instead of the mandatory 3

• And to keep workers in the building during the work day, the owner locked the doors of the factory.

• Fire starts, ladder only reaches 6

• 146 people die, many jumping

Fire Department en routeto the fire.

Bodies on the Street Below

The Funeral

• “ One Saturday afternoon in March of that year — March 25, to be precise — I was sitting at one of the reading tables in the old Astor Library... It was a raw, unpleasant day and the comfortable reading room seemed a delightful place to spend the remaining few hours until the library closed. I was deeply engrossed in my book when I became aware of fire engines racing past the building. By this time I was sufficiently Americanized to be fascinated by the sound of fire engines. Along with several others in the library, I ran out to see what was happening, and followed crowds of people to the scene of the fire.

A few blocks away, the Asch Building at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street was ablaze. When we arrived at the scene, the police had thrown up a cordon around the area and the firemen were helplessly fighting the blaze. The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of the building were now an enormous roaring cornice of flames.

Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I among them — looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies.

The emotions of the crowd were indescribable. Women were hysterical, scores fainted; men wept as, in paroxysms of frenzy, they hurled themselves against the police lines.”

Social Unrest is beginning.

When people are struggling to have their basic rights and needs met, they will revolt.

How can workers revolt?

What power do workers have?

Workers can Unionize!

• A union is when all workers in a particular trade or industry come together and withhold their skillz (in other words, their labor) until the company agrees to improve working conditions in one way or anther

• Poor wages• Long hours• Awful working conditions

Two Types of Early UnionsWrite these down

Trade UnionsWorkers of a particular

“skill” come together

--Knights of St. Crispin was the shoemakers union

--Iron Molders International Union

Industrial UnionWorkers of an ENTIRE

industry would come together.

--everyone in the steel factory

--everyone in a railroad company

Companies were fearful of unions

WHY Fearful???• Employers needed the labor, so they did all they

could to stop unions from organizing• Required workers to sign oaths before employment• Hired detectives to identify union organizers• Workers found guilty were fired and put on the

blacklist – list of the “hireables” that companies would share

• Lockouts – owners would “lockout” the workers, not pay them, and hire replacements

Political and Social Opposition of Unions

• Remember factory work was brand new, and we don’t always understand how bad things are for us until way too late – think cigarettes for ex

• Courts ruled against unions • People were beginning to believe that unions were

an extension of MARXISM which was becoming very influential in Europe

• The immigrant issue…People eventually become scared of too many immigrants…people associate immigrants with unions. So…unions = scary immigrants. Make sense?

MARXISM• Capitalist economy = rich oppress the poor • Workers will eventually revolt to overthrow the rich• After the revolution, a socialist society would be

created in which ALL wealth would be divided evenly

• YEA!!!

Struggling to Organize• Workers tried create unions many times, but rarely

succeeded• Often times confrontations led to bloodshed• The tipping point had come• 1868, William Sylvis started the NLU• National Labor Union – 1st national

In a letter to Karl Marx he wrote:“…monied power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can we will win through the ballot box; if not, we will resort to sterner means. A little bloodletting is sometimes necessary in desperate causes.”

Yea! Things are going….great!

The Great Railroad Strike• 1873– Europe and USA go into HUGE recessions• Companies forced to continuously cut employee

wages• 1877 -- Baltimore & Ohio RR announces its cutting

wages for the 3rd time• Martinsburg, WV railroad workers walk off the job

and block the tracks• Word spreads, RR workers across the country walk

off jobs, eventually block rail service in New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburg, and St. Louis

• 80,00 RR workers, and 2/3 of the nations railroads

The Great Railroad Strike cont…• President Hayes announces the

strike as a “insurrection”• Sends in US troops to the

effected cities• 45 bloody days for police, state

militias, and federal troops to restore order

• 100 people died• 10 billion in RR property

destroyed• The message had been sent…

strikes suck…but they kinda work.

Think about it: RR shut down….lots of people effected looked for people to blame

• Blamed immigrants• Blamed communism• Unemployed workers• Trade unions

The New Kid on the Block…

The Knights of Labor• Started by Terrence Powderly• Non-socialist and non-radical• The biggest and newest labor union• Wanted 8 hour work day, Abolition

of child labor, Equal Pay for women, End convict labor

• Let in women and african-americans• Kept out Chinese, doctors, lawyers,

liquor makers for being “unfit”

• 1880 – 28,000 1886 – 700,000

Haymarket Riot -- 1886• Supporters of 8 hour work day call for nation wide strike on

May 1st 1886• NofL lead 80,000 supporters on march thru Chicago• Rioters meet in front of McCormick's Harvesting Machine

Co., police kill 4 workers• Local anarchist group leads meeting at Haymarket Square to

protest the shootings, and 3,00 gathered• Police move in to keep order, bomb is thrown by anarchist,

1 officer killed, 6 others wounded• Police open fire, workers open fire• 8 officers died (mostly friendly fire) and unknown # of

civilians• 100 people injured including 70 police officers

8 men were convicted, 4 executed

Officer who died

This turned out awful for unions.

Why?

Howard Zinn Haymarket Lecture

Homestead Strike, 1892• Steel mill owned by Andre Carnegie in Homestead, Pennsylvania• Managed by anti-union man Henry Clay Frick• Mills employees part of the Amalgamated Association of Iron,

Steel, and Tin Workers• Frick announced 20% pay cut on the next bargaining agreement

that was about to be signed• Workers so no, Frick locks the workers out…workers try to shut

the plant down by keeping people out• Hires the “Pinkerton Detection Agency” to bring in

strikebreakers…plan to get them into the factory-barge• 14 hour gunfight , many dead• State militia called in protect strikebreakers, after 4 months the

strike collapses

Strikers at Homestead, PA

The Pinkerton Barge Event

The Pullman Strike• George Pullman – invented the

sleeping car which revolutionized the RR business

• Put beds, curtains, bathrooms, libraries etc on trains to make it pleasurable

Luxury Pullman Car

The Pullman Strike Cont…• In 1880 Pullman Bought 4000 Acres of Land 14 miles

south of Chicago near Lake Calmute to make a company town

• Workers were required to live there and had to buy from his stores

• The town was built adjacent to his factory with libraries, hotels, parks, churches, theaters, housing and shopping areas, all for his employees that lived within the town to be closer to their work.

• Pullman believed that if he gave his workers this town, they would supply him with a very loyal work force.

• His main concern was making money

Pullman Bucks!

"We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman schools, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell." Pullman employee living in the Pullman-owned town.

1894—Recession hits…Pullman cuts wages but refuses to cut prices for rents and groceries in his stores.

Pullman Strike Cont….• Pullman refuses to listen to worker’s complaints• May 11, 1894 the Pullman workers strike• Eugene V. Debs – leader of the American Railway

Union (ARU) had his large national group of RR workers refuse to handle Pullman cars as a sign of solidarity between all RR workers

• Railroads became tied up; threatened the nation’s economy (if the trains stop, the money stops)

• Enter President Grover Cleveland….

Pullman Strike Cont…• Fearing bad economy makes him

look bad, Cleveland needed to get the economy going

• Had Pullman cars attached to US Mail carts.

WHY?• Crime to interfere with US mail,

so once it happened, he sent in federal troops. Sneaky, sneaky.

Pullman Strike Continued

• Federal troops quickly put the strike down claiming they had to keep the mail running

• WAS THIS OK FOR A PRESIDENT TO DO?• Eugene V. Debs was arrested for violating the

injunction to • Major win for big business ---- WHY?

Strikers outside of Pullman

A poor laborer participating in the strike lives in a shantytown.

Troops guarding the Train at Pullman

Samuel Gompers and AFL• Samuel Gompers was the first

leader for the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

• This was the most dominant union in the late 1800’s.

• The AF of L fought for higher wages, better working conditions, and 8 hour workdays.

• Gompers was popular because he wanted to negotiate rather than strike.