Big Business vs. Labor

Rise of Labor Unions

• Work week: 12 hr days, 6 days a week

• No vacation, no sick days, no insurance

• No safety rules, so dangerous work– 1882: 675 work deaths/week– ( ? 2003, 5,500 work deaths ? )

• 1899: Avg worker: $475/year

• 1899: Carnegie: $23,000,000/year

• 48,421 times his workers’ salary

Unions Combat Inequality

• 1869: Knights of Labor opened to all workers.

– 8 hr workday

– = pay for men & women

– didn’t want to strike

• 1886: Samuel Gompers forms American Federation of Labor

– “union of unions”

– Collective bargaining: All workers going for same contract

– Liked to strike

• 1905: Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”)

– Supported Communism

– Welcomed all races

– Seen as “terrorists”

Strikes Turn Violent

• Great Strike of 1877

– B&O RR workers strike over wages

– Other RR workers strike, traffic grinds to halt

– Pres. Hayes sends Army to break it up. 18 killed. Blamed on “German agitators!”

6th Md. I.D. taking aim

• Haymarket Affair (1886)

– McCormick workers in CHI gather in Haymarket Sq. to protest

– Anarchists detonate a bomb, killing police - police retaliate & attack workers

– Unions HIGHLY discouraged in CHI!

Harper’s Weekly illustration of the bombing

• Homestead Strike (1892)– Carnegie workers strike for $$– Company hires security, workers

drive them out– National Guard moves in, 7 die,

many arrested, union breaks– Last major steelworker strike

PA Natl Guard marching

Barges torched by union

Effects of unions

• Positive– Workers that

survived cuts often got raises

– Strikes effected the companies

– Companies began dealing a bit more fairly in hopes of avoiding strikes

• Negative– To pay for the raises,

many were fired– Strikes bankrupted

some companies - cutting all jobs!

– Unions themselves became large, & sometimes got as corrupt as bosses!