Labor Movement

Prior to the 1870s, America's economy was based on agriculture. The Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century introduced new opportunities for labor and changed the way Americans earned a living.

Between 1860 and 1900, the number of workers in manufacturing quadrupled to six million. Where once people had made their living farming, millions now left home each day to work in industry and earn a wage. Change on such a magnificent level tends to bring problems that need to be solved, and in the case of the Industrial Revolution the treatment of workers was one such problem.

Hardships in every industry

In every industry, pay was very low and working conditions were horrible. Many industries, such as coal mining , relied on immigrants who needed work. Company owners knew they could force them to work long hours in dangerous conditions for next to no pay, and the immigrants would accept that without complaint. Most knew no English and had no idea how American society operated. They were grateful just to find jobs.

Women and children were treated particularly poorly. Child labor was common as families required every able body to work to pay for housing and food. According to the laws of the day, women and children were considered second-class citizens, so most industries saw no need to treat them humanely.

Labor unions to the rescue?

Big business was right: workers needed their jobs, and they were willing to accept poor treatment up to a point, especially if there was hope for a better life. But as workers continued to labor long hours without earning enough money even to survive, they knew something had to change. The determination to change wages and working conditions led to the formation of labor unions, formally organized associations of

workers that advanced members’ views on wages, work hours, and labor conditions.

Company and factory owners were vehemently opposed to the formation of labor unions. The more money they had to invest in wages or making the workplace safe, the less profit they would make. Also, there were no benefits such as health insurance in those days, so if a worker got sick, there were always many more willing to take his or her place.

The idea of labor unions was not new to the Industrial Revolution. As far back as the 1790s, shoemakers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , organized their efforts. One of the most powerful labor unions was organized in 1869. The Knights of Labor (KOL) allowed both skilled and unskilled laborers to join. At first, the group met in secrecy, but by the 1880s it had become a national force.

When workers were dissatisfied with their wages or labor conditions, they met with their union. Union leaders would then attempt to meet with the owner or manager of the employees’ company to negotiate how best to compromise so that both sides could be satisfied. More often than not, business owners refused to negotiate. When that happened, workers did not have many options in how to respond, so usually they went on strike . A strike is when workers refuse to do their jobs until their grievances are discussed and resolved.

Violence everywhere

Some of the most violent labor strikes in American history occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1877, 20 percent of America's labor force was unemployed. Another 60 percent worked irregular hours and took odd jobs as they could find them. Railroad workers were laboring fifteen to eighteen hours a day only to earn 35 percent less in wages than they had earned five years before. It was a hard time for everyone.

America depended upon the railroad for business and industry to run. When one railroad company informed its workers they would be forced to endure another 10 percent pay cut, the workers went on strike. As more railroads announced pay cuts, more workers went on strike. In West Virginia a strike got so violent that President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893; served 1877–81) called in federal troops to take control. It was the first time a U.S. president took federal action against strikers. Another strike in 1877, this one in Pennsylvania, turned into a riot in which twenty-five people were killed and more wounded. More than $10 million in property damages had been incurred. (See Great Railroad Strike .)

The Haymarket Square riot on May 4, 1886, began as a peaceful protest in downtown Chicago, Illinois . Participants were publicly denouncing the police brutality of strikers just the day before. Police had attacked unarmed strikers and killed several of them. As the Haymarket meeting was coming to an end, police arrived to break it up. Someone from the crowd threw a bomb into the group of police officers, killing one on the spot. A riot broke out, and both sides began shooting. No one knows who threw the bomb, and the number of dead protestors has never been confirmed. Seven more police officers died as a result of the bomb.

There seemed no end to the strikes. The Homestead Strike at the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892 involved armed battles between strikers and detectives hired to act as guards. It took eight thousand state troops to take control of the strike, and the workers never had their demands met. Ten men died in the violence and scores of others were injured. Two years later, workers at a railroad car manufacturing plant in Pullman, Illinois, went on strike. President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97) sent in twenty-five hundred troops to halt the Pullman Strike . Strikers rioted against the troops for two days. Around thirty strikers were killed and many more wounded. Soon, fourteen thousand troops were on site. After several weeks of negotiating, the company reopened for business.

Strikes continue

The coal mining industry saw its share of strikes, one in 1900 and another in 1902. But the worst strike of the industry by far did not happen until 1914. In September 1913, more than ten thousand coal miners went on strike in Ludlow, Colorado . Led by the United Mine Workers of America, the workers demanded, among other things, union recognition, a wage increase, enforcement of the eight-hour-day law as well as state mining laws, and the right to choose where they shopped and lived.

The leader among mine operators was the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, owned by John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937). Rockefeller had the miners and their families evicted from company housing and used the National Guard to keep the mines operating.

Without shelter, the mining families set up tents in the hills and continued striking throughout the winter. Conditions were harsh, and food was scarce. But Rockefeller showed no sign of changing his mind; arbitration would not take place.

April 20, 1914, was Easter on the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Greek immigrants among the miners were celebrating. Despite the strike, the mood around the tent camp that morning was festive. At 10 AM, however, Colorado troops surrounded the camp in Ludlow and opened fire on the miners’ tent colony, which had been set up on public property. Company guards, strikebreakers, private detectives, and soldiers had planned the attack. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun called the Death Special. As

bullets sprayed through the colony, tents caught on fire. Later, investigations revealed that kerosene had been poured on the tents.

By the end of the day, twenty people, including two women and eleven children, were dead. Three strikers were taken prisoner and executed. None of the attackers was ever punished, although hundreds of the miners were arrested and blacklisted (forbidden to find work) in the coal industry. John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874–1960), who by this time was in charge of the mine, denied the massacre ever occurred and publicly stated that no women or children died in what he called a fight that was started by the miners. He spent the next decade trying to repair the damage done by the Ludlow Massacre to the Rockefeller name. He gradually came to acknowledge the atrocity of the massacre, and through his efforts to right the wrongs that had been done, Rockefeller increased the social awareness of his entire family. The Rockefellers would eventually become one of the most philanthropic (generous, through charitable donations) families in America.

The American Federation of Labor

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) worked at one of the bigger cigar shops in New York. Gompers was born in London, England, to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Holland. He learned how to make cigars at a young age. When he moved with his family to America in 1863, he relied on his skills to earn a living. By 1885, having earned a reputation as a dependable worker with a serious mind, Gompers was elected president of Cigar Makers International Union Local 144.

In 1886, the New York Cigar Manufacturers' Association cut wages. Local 144 of the Cigar Makers International Union and the other cigar union, Progressive No. 1 of KOL, protested. When cigar manufacturers ordered a lockout of ten thousand workers, Progressive No. 1 negotiated and settled with the employers. Local 144 did not give in. As president, Gompers felt betrayed by the KOL and its leader, Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924), and accused the group of not having the best interests of the workers in mind. Gompers persuaded the Cigar Makers union to boycott all other cigars.

The conflict between the two unions gave the crafters (skilled laborers) unions the opportunity they had been waiting for to confront the KOL. The Knights, still focused on improving the rights of the unskilled laborer, ordered all members of the Cigar Makers International Union to

resign or give up their KOL membership. On December 8, 1886, forty-two members of twenty-five different labor unions met and formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The labor movement had a new leader.

Unlike the KOL, the AFL acknowledged that each trade within its membership had autonomy (the ability to make its own specific rules and regulations). The executive committee would not interfere in each trade union's internal affairs, but it would have the right to resolve disputes. The AFL required dues (regular payments) to create a strike fund. That money would be paid to workers on strike, although the amount would not equal their usual pay. Soon, city and state federations of the AFL were formed to promote labor legislation.

Gompers was elected the AFL's first president in 1886. With the exception of one year, he kept that position until his death thirty-eight years later. He drafted charters, collected monies, organized conventions, and edited the AFL's newspaper. He was a popular president who never lost communication with the laborers.

Despite Gompers's popularity, the AFL's growth was slow. Membership in 1886 was 150,000. By 1892, it had increased by just another hundred thousand. Despite the slow rise in membership, however, the AFL offered the first real stability to labor unions. That stability attracted four railway brotherhoods, which had learned their lesson in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Other labor unions joined because the AFL offered health insurance and other benefits that many laborers considered as important as wages, if not more so. Laborers who disagreed with the philosophy and mission of the KOL left the Knights in favor of the AFL. The KOL had its lowest membership ever in 1900 and eventually disappeared.

A look to the future

Laissez-faire (lack of government interference) capitalism was America's reality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without a way to fight effectively for justice, the working class could not hope to improve the future. The Haymarket Square riot and the Homestead and Pullman strikes were reminders that power was in the hands of the wealthy. The majority of laborers still worked between fifty-four and sixty-three hours each week, sometimes even longer.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) offered hope. By 1901, 75 percent of all trade union members were also members of the AFL. Its leader, Gompers, remained opposed to allowing unskilled workers into the AFL, partly because the socialists favored it.

Socialists in America continued to fight capitalism. When the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) tried to take over the KOL and the AFL in the 1890s, it failed. Many Jewish laborers, tired of the authoritarian (controlling) attitude of the SLP, severed ties with the organization in 1897 and 1898. Their leaders joined fellow labor leader Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) in founding the Socialist Party of America in 1901. Socialism is a system in which the government owns and operates business and production as well as the distribution of wealth.

Although progress was slow for the labor movement, most of the important gains were made in state and federal legislation. Congress passed the Erdman Act in 1898, which stated that railroads could not discriminate against union members. Between 1886 and the end of the century, reform took place in areas that included child labor, women's labor, negotiation guidelines, the eight-hour workday, safety conditions, and responsibility for accidents. Major federal reform legislation was not passed until the 1930s.