1. Workers of the Nation Unite

2. How are the workers exploited by big business?
Average laborer works 12 hrs./day and 6 days/week
Men often work 7 days/week
No benefits
No vacation, sick leave, unemployment compensation, or injury benefits
1882 = 675 factory workers are killed each week
Poor working conditions
Fired for no reason
Blacklisted, Lockouts

3. How are women and children treated in industry?
Wages are so low that most women and children must work to survive
20% of children under 12 work full time
Youngest full time employee is only 4
Children earn an average of $0.02/hr.
Women earn ½ as much as their male counterparts

4. What is the worker’s response to labor exploitation?
Labor Unions Emerge - Unions represent the 1st multi-gender, multi-racial, mutli-class organizations in the U.S.

5. Early Unions
Trade Unions – Workers that perform the same skill – craft workers
Industrial Unions – All the workers in the same industry

6. Knights of Labor – 1889 Terence Powderly Open to all people…no exceptions men, women, African Americans “An injury to one is a concern for all”
American Federation of Labor (AFL)- Organized in 1886 by Samuel Gompers
Denied unskilled workers, women, African Americans & immigrants
Both Fought for higher wages, shorter hours & benefits for disabled

7. What movement branches off of the labor unions?
Socialism
The exploitation of the workers and the accumulation of the wealth by the rich causes tension
Eugene Debs and the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World aka “the Wobblies”) push for national socialism
No distinction between skilled and unskilled workers

8. When Unions and Companies can’t agree?
Strikes…when workers voluntarily refuse to work
Haymarket Square Riot ,200 protest in Chicago Wanted an 8hr workday. Over 400 strikers and 4 police are killed during riots
Homestead Strike 1892 – steel workers. Several killed. Scabs (replacement workers) are used for the first time
Pullman Strike 1894– Company refused to listen to railway workers’ grievances about living in company towns. President Cleveland sent in troops and asked the courts to issue an injunction (court order ending a strike), jails Debs, & has all strikers fired