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The American Labor Unions
of the late 1th Century
The American Labor Movement of the nineteenth century developed as a result of the city-wide organizations that unhappy workers were establishing. These men and women were determined to receive the rights and privileges they deserved as citizens of a free country. They refused to be treated like slaves, and work under unbearable conditions any longer. Workers joined together and realized that a group is much more powerful than an individual when protesting against intimidating companies. Unions, coalitions of workers pursuing a common objective, began to form demanding only ten instead of twelve hours in a work day. Workers realized the importance of economic and legal protection against the powerful employers who took advantage of them.
The beginnings of the American Labor Movement started with the Industrial Revolution. Textile mills were the first factories built in the United States. Once factory systems began to grow, a demand for workers increased. They hired large amounts of young women and children who were expected to do the same work as men for less wages. New immigrants were also employed and called free workers because they were unskilled. These immigrants poured into cities, desperate for any kind of work.Child labor in the factories was not only common, but necessary for a family's income. Children as young as five or six manned machines or did jobs such as sweeping floors to earn money. It was dangerous, and they were often hurt by the large, heavy machinery. No laws prevented the factories from using these children, so they continued to do so.Sweatshops were created in crowded, unsanitary tenements. These were makeshift construction houses, dirty and unbearably hot. They were usually formed for the construction of garments. The wages, as in factories, were pitifully low, no benefits were made, and the worker was paid by the number of pieces he or she completed in a day. Unrealistic demands were put on the workers who could barely afford to support their families.
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The first large national labor organization to become popular was the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. It was founded in 186 by garment workers in Philadelphia who believed that one union of skilled and unskilled workers should exist. The union was originally a secret, but later was open to all workers, including blacks, women and farmers. Five hundred thousand workers joined in a year. Their goals were an eight-hour work day, a minimum wage, arbitration rather than strikes, health and safety laws, equal pay for equal work, no child labor under the age of fourteen, and government ownership of railroads, telegraphs and telephones. However, the Knights of Labor was a relatively weak organization, and eventually fell apart.
In 1886, the American Federation of Laborwas formed and replaced the Knights of Labor. Its leader was former cigar union official Samuel Gompers who only wanted to focus on skilled workers.The founders were quoted as saying, the various trades have been affected by the introduction of machinery, the subdivision of labor, the use of women's and children's labor and the lack of an apprentice system so that the skilled trades were rapidly sinking to the level of pauper labor. To protect the skilled labor of America from being reduced to beggary and to sustain the standard of American workmanship and skill, the trade unions of America have been established. The AF of L was a conglomeration of twenty-five unions that included three hundred thousand workers working for increasing wages, reducing hours, and improving working conditions.Gompers believed that everyone should receive equal pay for equal work, and that everyone's rights should be protected. He also thought the unions should be primarily concerned with the day-to-day welfare of the members and should not become involved with politics. He also thought that socialism would not succeed in the United States. Bread and butter unionism was the term given to his philosophies that higher wages and fewer working hours could achieve the goal of a better life for the working people.
Laborer's goals and the unwillingness of capital to grant them resulted in many violent labor conflicts and strikes. The first of these occurred with the Great Rail Strike of 1877. Rail workers all over the United States went on strike due to a ten percent pay reduction. Rioting and destruction of several cities surfaced with the efforts to stop the strike. Federal troops had to be sent in at several locations to end the strike such as Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and San Francisco, California.
The Haymarket Square incident took place nine years later in 1886. On May 1, many workers struck for shorter hours. A group of radicals and anarchists became involved in this campaign. Two days later, a death occurred from shooting during a riot in the McCormick Harvester plant in Chicago when police arrived and tangled in the chaos. On May 4, a bomb exploded in Haymarket Square during a meeting called to discuss the events of the preceding day.Nine people died, including eight police officers, and some sixty were wounded.
The next riots came in 18, at Carnegie's steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The company hired three hundred Pinkerton detectives to break a strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron. Steel and tin workers were fired upon and ten were killed. The National Guard was called in to resolve the situation. Non-union workers were hired and the strike was broken. Unions were not allowed back into the plant until 17.
Two years later, a strike in the Pullman Palace Car company came about as a result of wage cuts. The American Railway union joined the strike, and much of the country's rail system was not running. Over three thousand men were trusted by General Richard Olney to keep the rails open. The federal court gave a court order against union interference with the trains since they were an important and necessary vehicle in transportation, and the strike was eventually broken.
The purpose and philosophy of a union, that a group is more powerful than any individual, has not changed throughout time. Americans are still fighting for what they believe in. They have been since the development of the country. Americans have realized that working together in unison is important for achieving their goals. The country would not have survived if the people had not compromised and shared the wealth. Although we as a nation have conflicts in the society that we live in, the past has taught us to handle problems calmly, rationally, and together. Many Americans take their job benefits for granted, not realizing the struggles our ancestors underwent for their security and happiness. The Constitution states that every American is entitled to the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the workers were controlled and overpowered by their employers, and treated inhumanely, then they were like slaves serving their masters. In conclusion, unions developed in America due to the slavery-like conditions facing the American worker.
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