Labor Fights for ChangeIndustrialization (The Ugly)

Labor Unions Emerge

• As working conditions worsened, and incomes widened, laborers began to organize into unions

• One of the first: The Knights of Labor

• “An injury to one is the concern of all”.

• Opened membership to many, discouraged strikes

Union Movements Diverge:

• What two types of unions would emerge?

• #1: craft unions• skilled workers• Samuel Gompers leads the

American Federation of Labor• Focus on collective bargaining• Strikes for: higher wages,

safer conditions, shorter week

Union Movements Diverge

• #2: Industrial Unions• Ex. American Railway

Union• AFL dies• More radical (leftist) &

open groups emerge• The IWW

“Commonwealth of Toil” By IWW

Political radicals!

Socialism and Unions

• Leader of the “Wobblies”: Eugene V. Debs

• “abolition of the wage system”

• Attracted western miners and loggers, immigrants, steel workers

Debs making speech

(eventually runs for President five times

under Socialist Party)

How did unions change the workplace? Why did they get a bad name?

• Hippocampus link: unions

Think, pair, share: What % of the workforce today is in unions?

Strikes = Violence

• Businesses did not like the union movement

• Fierce resistance on both sides

• Bus. had general public support, laissez-faire govt., and huge supply of workers

• Govt. was suspicious of “leftist leaders”

• Courts ignored rulings

• Troops often sent in to allow industry to continue

Violence Erupts

Workers for the Baltimore & Ohio RR (B&O) struck to protest ANOTHER wage cut!

Violence Erupts

The Haymarket Affair (bombing)

Did Unions Succeed In Their Goals?

+• Triangle Shirtwaist fire• Most industries set

maximum work hours (8-10)

• Worker’s Compensation

• Minimum age restrictions

• Health standards (1912)

• -• Management forbids

unions• Public dislikes

violence and socialist flair

• Sherman Anti-trust Act used against; injunction issued

Clip from the Story of Us: Cities- Triangle (6 min)

Union Movement

Civil War HaymarketSquare1886

Panicof 1873

National LaborUnion

Knights of Labor

AFL

Go to QT Movie on Carnegie & Homestead Strike