The Rise of Labor Unions

1
The Rise of Labor Unions
2
Labor Unions My Questions

• Name three issues that unskilled workers often
  dealt with during this time period.
• Why was the Great Railroad Strike important to
  the creation of unions?
• What was the Haymarket Riot?

3
Industrialization Creates Work

• The Industrial Revolution in America created a
  huge demand for unskilled workers in the factory,
  building railroads and cities, mining coal, and
  more.
• The incredible demand for workers attracted
  people from around the world to flock to
  industrial cities for work.

4
Unskilled Workers

• Because factories and other wealthy employers
  were looking to make huge profits, they only
  wanted to hire unskilled or low-skilled workers
  who did not have skills that made them more
  expensive to hire.
• These workers were made to do monotonous, hard
  work like shoveling dirt and lift heavy machinery
  for usually more than twelve hours a day.

5
Unskilled Workers Continued

• By the 1880s 1/3 of the labor force in industrial
  work was unskilled.
• City workers often had to drift from city to city
  and industry to industry to find consistent work
  because businesses were known to constantly let
  go of workers for dumb reasons or no reason at
  all.

6
Dangerous Work

• Workers were often exposed to working
  environments that could be fatal.
• Both in factories and mines, workers were known
  to acquire industrial diseases, like black and
  brown lung.
• In 1889, the first year the government took track
  of work-related injuries, 2,000 railroad workers
  were killed and more than 20, 000 were injured.

7
Workers Compensation Safety Regulations

• Disabled workers and workers widows received
  little if anything from employers.
• Bosses often fought against the government when
  it tried to implement new safety and health
  standards.
• The reason bosses said new regulations would be
  too expensive to enforce.

8
Horrible Pay

• In the late 1870s most industrial workers made
  just 1.30 a day.
• Bricklayers and blacksmiths took in a little over
  3 a day.
• Unskilled laborers in Southern mills had it the
  worst they made just 84 cents a day.
• Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 of America at the
  time had 50 of the money.
• The Vanderbilts, one of the wealthiest families
  in America at the time, was known to throw
  parties that cost over 250,000which would equal
  4,000,000 today.

9
Rise of the Workers

• Upset with their working conditions and low
  wages, workers across the country turned to
  organized strikes and riots.
• Between 1881-1905 almost 37,000 strikes took
  place, involving seven million workers.
• Violence usually erupted as strikers attacked
  employers property and the scab workers meant
  to replace them.

10
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

• In the summer of 1877 the Baltimore Ohio (BO)
  Railroad announced a 10 percent pay cut from its
  workers.
• Angry workers in West Virginia, already upset
  that their pay had been reduced from 70 to 30 a
  month, decided to walk out on strike.
• Soon the strike spread to major cities like
  Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco.

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The Great Railroad Strike Continued

• Over 500,000 workers from different businesses
  joined the strike in support of the railroad
  laborers.
• With so many workers refusing to go to work, the
  nation was paralyzed.
• In Pittsburgh, 40 strikers were shot by state
  troops while strikers managed to cause 2 million
  worth of damage to the railroads.
• Because of the violence against workers and how
  powerful the workers were when they went on
  strike together, many workers decided to join
  unions for the first time following the Great
  Railroad Strike.

12
Railroad Destroyed from the Great Strike
13
The Haymarket Riot

• On May 3, 1886, Chicago police shot and killed
  four workers striking unfair conditions at the
  McCormick reaper plant.
• The next day at a protest rally, someone threw a
  bomb from a nearby building that killed seven
  police men.
• In response, the police began to fire haphazardly
  into the crowd, killing and injuring dozens of
  bystanders.

14
Food For Thought Do you think this is a
pro-police or pro-union drawing of the Haymarket
Riot?
15
The Haymarket Riot Aftermath

• Government response was swift and brutal.
• With no evidence, police arrested eight pro-union
  men and convicted all of them for murder.
• Four of them were executed while one committed
  suicide in prison.
• Finally, in 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld
  pardoned the remaining three, claiming that the
  convictions were unfair and without evidence.

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The Rise of Labor Unions

• With the widespread strikes, laborers throughout
  the country recognized that when they organized
  together they were a powerful force.
• The brutal violence against workers also
  motivated many to band together against their
  oppressors. However, if the workers themselves
  were violent, bad publicity could negatively
  affect union numbers.
• Often workers turned to labor unions like the
  Knights of Labor and the American Federation of
  Labor.