Labor Conditions and Strikes

Overview…

• Working Class• Work Life• Child labor

• Labor Unions• Strikes• Labor organizations• Haymarket Affair • Homestead Strike • Pullman strike

Working Class…• “Those who are above

the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down”

• These people were the “muscle” that helped push American productivity to new heights and made employers rich

•

Work Life

• Work 6 days a week• 10 Hours + • Maybe make a

$1.00 a day • Work was

dangerous and yet boring to most

• Division of labor

Working Conditions

• Dangerous • Life threatening• Hazardous

conditions• Injured on the

job= No pay

• Whirling shafts• Slippery floors• Spinning

blades• Molten steel • Bone crushing

machinery • No safety

equipment

Child Labor • Working could make

a difference for family life

• Hired because they cost lost

• Some states had laws on child labor

• Most states did not follow them

• Mills, Factories, Coal Mines, etc.

Labor Unions • Group of workers

organized to protect the interests of its members.

• 3 Goals: Higher wages, Shorter hours and Better working conditions

Strikes • A labor action in

which workers simply refuse to go to work

• Used as a last resort

• Unions worked together but bad leadership collapse in 1872

• Yellow-Dog- Contracts• Depression = Not good for

unions• Knights of Labor skilled and

unskilled workers• Declined after 1886

• American Federation of Labor • Skilled Labors • 1886 took off in the 1890s

National Labor Organization

• Chicago in 1886• Started when union labors

fought with nonunion workers• Police shoot into a crowd of

people • Anarchists called for a meeting

in the next day• Good Meeting• Around the end 180 Police

officers show up • Some one throws a bomb no

one knows who it was and chaos follows

• Divided the labor movement

Haymarket Affair

• 1892 Homestead Penn.• Henry Frick • 300 private Pinkerton men to

protect the steel plant against strikers

• Strikers were armed and waiting to Pinkertons

• Daylong gun battle • Pinkertons lost• Govern calls in state militia• Nonunion workers brought in

and for the next four decades the union was shut out.

Homestead Strike

• 1894 Southern part of Chicago • Pullman Palace Car company • Fancy railcars • Employees lived in company town of

Pullman• Living in town meant that

employees were always in debt to the company

• Pullman CO. cut wages but kept bills and rent the same

• American Railway Union supported the Pullman strike

• Grover Cleveland sent federal troops• Troops and Strikers battle • Strike ends

Pullman Strike