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American West and Industrialization

Part 2: The Labor Movement

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Labor Unions

Labor unions sprang up inthe late 1800s as workersfought to improve wagesand working conditions in

factories and businessesacross the United States.

Samuel Gompers andEugene Debs led

nationwide strikes in majorindustries in an effort toimprove pay, hours, andgeneralworking conditionsin the U.S.

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Working Conditions

There were large numbers ofunskilled workers, many of themimmigrants, who were willing towork for low wages.

Children from poor families skippedschool to work in dangerousfactories for very little money.

Women and children were bothpaid significantly less than men.

Factories did not have safetyrequirements, and many injuriesoccurred on the job.

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Working Conditions

Those who sustained injuries were leftto pay their medical bills without anyassistance from their company.

Factories forced their employees towork twelve, fourteen, and sixteenhour days or more for at least sixdays of the week.

Some factories employed thesweatshop technique for theirworkers.

In sweatshops, people workedlonghours, but instead of being paid bythe hour, they were paid based onhow much work they did.

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Rise of the Labor Unions

These working conditions slowlystarted to change as national laborunions emerged in the late 1800s.

The Knights of Laborwas founded inPhiladelphia in 1869, and its goalsincluded having an eight-hourworkday, improved wages, and anend to childlabor.

In 1886, Samuel Gompers founded theAmerican Federation of Labor(AFL), a union made up of *skilled*workers.

Gompers served as the president ofthe organization from 1886 to 1895and again from 1896 to 1924 andbecame the leading spokesman

during the labor movement.

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Great Strike

In order to be heard, thelabor unions helpedemployees organizestrikes at majorcompanies in the UnitedStates.

The first of many was TheGreat Strike in 1877.

Railroad workers across theU.S. refused to workinthe first nationwide strike.

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Haymarket Square Riot

In 1886, the Knights of Labor led a strikeagainst the McCormick HarvestingMachine Company in Chicago.

The police and the strikers clashed, and astriker was killed.

The next day, when people gathered toprotest the death of the striker, a groupof anarchists joined in the protest.

Police came to break up the group, and abomb was thrown at the police, killingseven policemen.

Because many people blamed the Knightsof Labor for what is now known as theHaymarket Square Riot, membershipin the union declined, and its influencewas weakened.

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Homestead Strike

In 1892, iron and steel workers whobelonged to the AmalgamatedAssociation ofIron and SteelWorkersstruck the Carnegie Steel Company inHomestead, Pennsylvania to protest aproposed wage cut.

The company's manager hired 300Pinkerton detectives to protect the plantand the strikebreakers who were stillworking.

In an armed battle between the workersand the detectives, several men were

killed or wounded.

The governor called out the state militia,and the nonunion workers stayed on thejob, ending the Homestead Strike.

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Pullman Strike

The last major strike of the 1800soccurred in 1894.

Workers at the Pullman Palace CarCompany in Chicago struck toprotest wage cuts and the firing ofunion representatives.

They got help from the AmericanRailway Union, which had beenfounded by Eugene V. Debs in1893.

The American Railway Union called aboycott of allPullman railway cars.

As a result of the Pullman Strike, railservice in the Midwest was severelydisrupted.

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Pullman Strike

The strike went on for two monthsuntil the federal governmentissued an injunction to end thestrike because the strike wasinterfering with interstate

commerce and was preventingthe delivery of U.S. mail.

Eugene Debs did not end the strikeafter the injunction and wassentenced to six months in jail.

The strike finally ended whenfederal troops were sent toChicago and other cities tobreak up the strike.

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Coal Miners Strike

John L. Lewis was anotherimportantleaderof organizedlabor.

In 1919, he led a strike of 400,000 coalminers.

The strike ended after President WoodrowWilson ordered an injunction to stop thestrike, and Lewis agreed to end it.

He served as the president of the United MineWorkers from 1920 to 1960, and was oneof the founders of the Congress ofIndustrial Organizations (CIO).

The CIO was formed because of a differingphilosophy than that of the AmericanFederation of Labor.

Leaders of the CIO thought that both skilledand unskilled workers should be includedin union membership, whereas the AFL

was only for skilled workers.

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National LaborRelations Act

In 1935, the Wagner Act, alsoknown as the National LaborRelations Act, was passedby Congress.

This act established the NationalLaborRelations Board andprotected the rights of unionsas they organized workers forcollective bargaining.

With the passage of this act,union membership grewdramatically.

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United Auto Workers

In 1936, workers at a GeneralMotors factory in Flint,Michigan, organized a sit-down strike.

This meant that they refused toleave the factory while theywere on strike.

The workers remained in thefactory for 44 days.

At the end of the strike, GeneralMotors allowed the UnitedAuto Workers to unionize itsworkers.