WHAT MAKES YOU STRIKE?

GULF BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR Industrialization had lowered the price of consumer goods Most factory workers couldn’t afford them Richest 9% owned 75% of the nations wealth Out of a class of 24 that’s just about 2 people Rich had extravagant lifestyles Poor made only a few hundred dollars a year

POOR HOUSING CONDITIONS Multiple people living in small living quarters High rent Communities sharing outhouses No running water Poor sanitation Disease spreads easily Tuberculosis Cholera Typhoid Small-pox

POLLUTION Smog and soot hung in the air Asphyxiation Sick Acid rain

CHILD LABOR Forced into tight spaces (Size) Wore chains around their waist which distorted them  made them smaller  died in childbirth As young as 4 12 hour days Sometimes with a 1 hour break (Dinner)

WORKING CONDITIONS Long hours hazardous conditions Forced labor

CHANGES investigate coal mines, factories, mills The combination of: public outrage political pressure changes in the law (eventually led to better and safer working conditions) pressure from the workers + protest = organized self- help groups (Trade unions)

SOCIALISM 1830’s Socialism – an economic and political philosophy that favors public instead of private control of the means of production More simply – everyone gets the same equal share Cooperate not compete

COMMUNISM 1848 Communism – a more radical form of socialism Communist Manifesto – denounced capitalism and predicted the workers would overturn it. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

THE IDEA WAS Haves and the Have nots bourgeois and proletariat Rich and workers Have nots would overthrow the upper class (more of them) and establish a dictatorship where the government would eventually disappear and everyone would live equally

…..BUT NEITHER REALLY CAUGHT ON Wealthy Saw it as a threat to their fortunes Politicians Saw it as a threat to public order Most Americans Saw it as a threat to deeply rooted American values of private property, free enterprise and individual liberty

….BUT UNION LABORS DID Early Labor Unions Construction and manufacturing NTU – National Trade Union Lasted only a few years Resurfaced after the Civil War Labor Unions were meant to help out in hard times but became an avenue for expressing worker’s demands to employers Shorter workdays, higher wages, and better working conditions

KOL Knights of Labor Philadelphia 1869 Goal: All working men and Women, skilled or unskilled into one union Terence Powderly Leadership Equal pay for equal work 8 hour workday End to child labor Preferred not to strike One strike helped them avoid a pay cut and soar to 700,000 members – others ended in violence with no success 1890’s weak

AFL American Federation of Labor 1886 Samuel Gompers Craft Union – skilled workers Specific to each trade Found ways to exclude African Americans and Women (believed they would drive wages down)

HOW THEY DIFFER KoL Anyone worker Allowed Women and AA Relied on Political activity and education AFL Skilled Workers Excluded Women and AA Relied on economic pressure (strikes and Boycotts)

HOW TO GET AHEAD Collective bargaining - a process in which workers negotiate as a group with employers *still a tactic used today – look at school districts!! Another tactic to help with CB – ‘closed shop’ a workplace in which only union members worked

IWW Industrial Workers of the World a.k.a. wobblies unskilled laborers Radical (many socialists) Violent strikes

EMPLOYERS REACTIONS TO UNIONS Feared if they paid workers more, their cost would go up and they would be less competitive in the market 1. forbidding union meetings 2. firing union organizers 3. forcing new employees to sign “yellow dog” contracts – promising never to join a union or strike 4. refusing to bargain collectively when strikes did occur 5. refusing to recognize unions as their workers’ legitimate representative