URBAN LABOR

-increased 400% by 1890

-mostly unskilled labor- not making the entire product

-assembly line work: mechanical system: breaking down the process

Miserable WORKING CONDITIONS

-sweatshops factory

-low wages: SO low, families could NOT survive unless everyone had a job

-long hours 12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week

*children 0.27 for a 14hr day

-dangerous conditions : Faulty equipment, poorly ventilated, no sick days, no vkay, no employee compensation

WORKING CONDITIONS

-company towns

-child labor as young as 5

Yearly earnings:

women earned $ 267

men $498

The Photographs of Lewis W. Hine

One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4

sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there

were ten children about her size. Whitnel, N.C

View of the Scotland Mills, showing boys who work in mill. Laurinburg, N.C.

LABOR UNIONS

-tried to improve conditions of workers

Closed Shops: Business only employees union members

*used strikes :press for demands

*Collective bargaining Negotiations with the employer, (wages, working conditions)

*Arbitration disputes settled by a 3rd party

LABOR UNIONS

-owners countered

blacklists “Don’t Hire”

lockouts

scabs : Strike breakers to keep factories operating

injunctions Court order to stop a strike

• The Gov’t and Industries responded forcefully to Union Activity: Threat to the entire Capitalist System

GOV’T INTERVENTION

-RR strike of 1877

RR strike that lasted over a week, all freight trains came to a standstill over 50,000 miles

-violent protests all over the US

-PRESIDENT had to send Federal troops sent to restore order

-Said strikers were impeding interstate commerce

Lasted over 45 days in some places

KNIGHTS OF LABOR

the most important American labor organizations of the 19th century

-Terence Powderly Leader of the Knights of Labor

-any kind of labor accepted: “A injury to one is a concern to all”

(offically opened to all workers)

-eventually failed after a series of strikes that did not work

-weakness?? :Saw strikes as a last resort, instead wanted to use arbitration

HAYMARKET SQUARE

-Chicago strike of 1886

encouraged by the Great RR strike of 1877

3000 people protesting –against police brutality (a striker had been killed & several wounded the day before)

-bomb thrown at protest when police arrived

-several people killed

-union activity was blamed for the violence

- The public began to turn against the Labor Movement

AFL America Federation of Labor

-Samuel Gompers president of the Union

-only allowed skilled labor to join- 1st organizations of “Craft” unions: skilled workers of one or more trades

-made strikes a legitimate weapon for union

-Won many victories for workers: higher wages, shorter work hrs

-Eugene V. Debs went on to protest for the PULLMAN STRIKE, thrown in jail and ran for President, for the socialist party

INDUSTRIAL UNIONS

-union combining all workers of an industry skilled and unskilled

-Eugene V. Debs

-United RR workers

-Pullman Coach strike, 1894

-Already angry over low pay & long hrs, last straw when company cuts workers wages but not the rent on workers housing.

-Government steps in –Debs is jailed

-Debs leaves prison as a socialist

Women Workers

-many were barred from Unions

-worked for better conditions for miners-

-used women and children in the strike process- 80 mill children w/hideous injuries to Prez TR’s home to influence the passage of Child Labor Laws

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones

- Thrown in Jail with Miners

-advocated against child labor

Pressure on Gov’t-public supports the plight of workers but likes cheap products

-Triangle Fire

1911, seamstresses locked into the factory to prevent theft, fire breaks out killing all 146 inside.

-gov’t regulations on working conditions and child labor

-Homestead Strike

-violent strike between workers and owners- steel plant

-damaged Carnegie, bc they actually shut down the plant and injured the scabs.

-

-Ludlow Strikeviolent strike in a mine owned by Rockefeller

• http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDN3X-WORI4

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_tFFQyEu_Q&feature=related