Populism and Protest:

Section 4.3Labor Violence

Review

• What characterizes a market economy?

• What characterizes a command economy?

• What is Social Darwinism?

• What is a monopoly?

• What is horizontal integration?

• What is vertical integration?

Factory Work

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Explain why laborers organized by identifying the condition under which they worked.

• Identify the significant labor unions, people who led them, and analyze their impact on the labor movement.

• Explain how several violent confrontations gave labor a bad and radical image and created a backlash against the movement.

Describe the working conditions endured by factory workers.

• Dangerous

• 12-14 hour

• 6 days a week

• Fired for any reason

• No sick days, health insurance, workers compensation

• Children from age 5

What options did the workers have? • Can they appeal to

their bosses?

• Can they petition the government?

• NO!!!

• They can UNITE

• Vote with ONE voice– Protest?– Go on strike?

What are unions?

• Union= Organization in which workers band together to form a collective voice to gain better pay, conditions, etc.

What methods do unions and employees use to fight each other?

Unions Weapons

• Strike= a work stoppage

• Boycott= organized agreement not to buy from certain company

Employer Weapons• Lockout= when the

employee closes his business to force workers to abide by his rule

• Scab= worker hired to break a strike

• Injunction- government order to stop strike

What was the American Federation of Labor (AFL)?

• Less radical labor union– Non violent methods– Strikes and boycotts

• Accepted capitalism

• Wanted “Piece of the Pie”

• Led by Samuel Gompers

Where would the AFL fall on the political spectrum?

What happened at the Haymarket Riot (1886)?

• 1 thousand workers held rally at Haymarket square to protest murder of workers by police

• Bomb thrown

• killed 7 cops, injured dozens

• Cops killed 10 protesters, injured dozens

• 4 radical leaders hanged (with little evidence)

How do you think the public viewed labor unions at this point?

• Steel workers at Carnegie’s mill went on strike after wages were lowered

• Frick (Boss) hired 300 Pinkerton guards to protect scab workers

• Killed several workers• Strike failed• Tarnished Carnegie’s

image

Describe the Homestead Strike (1892).

Describe the Homestead Strike.

Describe the Pullman strike.• George Pullman controlled all

facets of his workers lives– Cut wages (by 33%) during

Panic of 1893• Eugene V. Debs

– Leader of American Railway Union

– Ordered workers not to connect Pullman cars

– AFL refused to join them• Cleveland issued an

injunction (order to stop strike)

Where is Cleveland on the political spectrum?

Who was Big Bill Haywood?• Labor leader of the IWW

(Industrial Workers of the World) or the Wobblies

• A radical socialist• Called for “One Big

Union”• "Eight hours of work,

eight hours of play, eight hours of sleep-- eight hours a day!"

• Fled US in 1921 during espionage trial to Russia

Which side of the economic spectrum is Haywood?

• Fellow Workers, this is the Continental Congress of the working-class. We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working-class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working-class from the slave bondage of capitalism. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working-class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters

What factors are keeping unions from gaining power?

• Government

– Laissez faire

• Public opinion

– Viewed as violent radicals

• Exclusion of minorities

• Women, African Americans, immigrants, unskilled workers