The Labor Movements slides

Updates
• 4.3 NTSG due Fri., Quiz Fri.
• I am grading DBQs
– Hope to be done by next Monday
– Roof is leaking, so we’ll see…
• Research Project due Tues., Sept. 30
– Format is your choice
– Must involve primary and secondary sources
– Any topic from these sections, or another topic from 1870-1900
with my approval
4.1, 4.2
4.3
5.1, 5.2
6.2, 6.3
7.1, 7.2, 7.3
Should employers be required
to pay a “living wage”?
• No
– Businesses exists to make money for their owners, they are
not charities
– Low-paying jobs give low-skill workers a chance to have a job
– Employees are free to seek other opportunities by improving
their skills
• Yes
– Low-paying jobs create a cycle of poverty that affects more
than the worker him/herself
– It is unfair to punish low-skilled people with an inferior quality
of life
– There is enough wealth for everyone who can hold a job to
earn a “living wage”
• Choose a side
• If You Chose “No”:
– How can a full-time, minimum wage worker making ~$18,000
afford to give their children better opportunities than he/she has?
– If the role of business is NOT to provide a “decent” quality of life
to its employees, then what should fill that role?
• If You Chose “Yes”:
– Why are businesses responsible for offering Americans a good
life? Why not families, the community, government, churches,
and charities?
– Why shouldn’t pay be linked to skill?
Labor Force Distribution
1870-1900
The Changing American
Labor Force
Child Labor
Child Labor
“Galley Labor”
Management vs. Labor
“Tools” of
Management
“Tools” of
Labor
 “scabs”
 boycotts
 P. R. campaign
 informational
picketing
 Pinkertons
 lockout
 blacklisting
 yellow-dog contracts
 sympathy
demonstrations
 closed shops
 court injunctions
 organized
strikes
 open shop
 “wildcat” strikes
Labor Unrest: 1870-1900
The Corporate
“Bully-Boys”: Pinkerton
Agents
A Striker Confronts a
SCAB!
Knights of Labor
Terence V. Powderly
“An injury to one is the concern of all!”
Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor trade card
Goals of the Knights of
Labor
ù Eight-hour workday.
ù Workers’ cooperatives.
ù Worker-owned factories.
ù Abolition of child and prison labor.
ù Increased circulation of greenbacks.
ù Equal pay for men and women.
ù Safety codes in the workplace.
ù Prohibition of contract foreign labor.
ù Abolition of the National Bank.
The Great Railroad Strike
of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike
of 1877
The Tournament of Today:
A Set-to Between Labor and
Monopoly
Anarchists Meet on the
Lake Front in 1886
Haymarket Riot (1886)
McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.
Haymarket Martyrs
Governor John Peter Altgeld
The American Federation
of Labor: 1886
Samuel Gompers
How the AF of L
Would Help the Workers
ù Catered to the skilled worker.
ù Represented workers in matters of
national legislation.
ù Maintained a national strike fund.
ù Evangelized the cause of unionism.
ù Prevented disputes among the many craft
unions.
ù Mediated disputes between management
and labor.
ù Pushed for closed shops.
Homestead Steel Strike
(1892)
Homestead Steel
Works
The Amalgamated
Association of
Iron & Steel Workers
Big Corporate Profits!
Attempted Assassination!
Henry Frick
Alexander Berkman
A
“Company
Town”:
Pullman,
IL
Pullman Cars
A Pullman porter
The Pullman Strike of 1894
President Grover Cleveland
“If it takes the entire army and navy to
deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card
will be delivered!”
The Pullman Strike of 1894
Government by injunction!
The Socialists
Eugene V. Debs
The
“Formula”
unions + violence + strikes + socialists + immigrants =
anarchists
Workers Benefits Today
The Rise & Decline of
Organized Labor
Right-to-Work States Today