1. Challenges to Big Business: Henry George: Progress and Poverty Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward

2. Socialism 1870’s Socialist Labor Party
By American Socialist Party
By All three parties denounced Socialism

3. Unions First real labor victory in American History:
Shoe workers in Lynn, Mass.
10,000 walked off of the job and demanded:
Wage increase & union recognition

4. 1866 The National Labor Union
Founder: Sylves
Included many reform groups
Excluded women
640,000 members at peak
Died with the Panic of 1873

5. 1869 Knights of Labor Secret organization at first under Stephens
1878 Powderly took it out in the open
Open to all EXCEPT professionals
Short term goals: 8 Hour Day, end child labor
Long term goal: replace wages with a cooperative system

6. Knights of Labor Continued
By ,000 members
1880’s unsuccessful strikes
Became associated with violence, anarchy
No public sympathy
Government sided with big business
By 1890 down to 100,000 then died

7. The AFL Skilled Labor Founder: Gompers
Goals were political; not social:
8 Hour Day
Higher Wages
Better conditions
Equal pay for women (why?)

8. AFL sponsored legislation for:
Abolition of child labor
Restriction of immigration
Restriction of the use of injunction in labor disputes

9. The Strikes
1886 Haymarket Square Riots (Chicago)
1892 The Homestead Strike (Penn.)
1894 The Pullman Strike (Chicago)

10. No public sympathy
Unions will become associated with anarchy
Collective bargaining sounded communistic

11. May 1,1886 Haymarket Square Riots
The AFL called for a national strike for an 8 hour day
The day before, 4 strikers were killed during a strike outside of the McCormick Harvesting Co.
May 1st A bomb was thrown into a very large protest/gathering
7 policemen killed, 67 others injured
Police fired into the crowd, 4 more killed

12. Haymarket Square Continued
Local anarchists were rounded up
One was executed
1892 liberal Illinois governor, Altgeld, pardoned the others who were still in jail

13. 1892 The Homestead Strike Carnegie Steel Plant in Pennsylvania
Carnegie and plant manager, Frick, hated unions
At Homestead plant: The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers Union was affiliated with the AFL
serious wage cuts
1892 another wage cut and denied the union’s right to negotiate

14. Homestead Strike Continued
Workers occupied plants
Pinkerton’s called in to remove strikers and to protect scabs
Pinkerton’s approached by river
Workers poured oil into the river and set it on fire
All hell broke loose

15. Homestead continued
8,000 National Guard sent to protect Steel plant and replacement workers
Frick was shot and wounded
Public opinion against strikers
By down to 24,000 members
By less than 7,000
AFL just barely survived

16. 1894 The Pullman Strike
Winter Pullman Company cut wages by 25%
Did not reduce rents, store prices in its town
1893 Eugene Debs organized the American Railway Workers Union (ARU)
Called for a nation-wide strike against Pullman Co. in July of 1894
60,000 walked off of the job

17. Pullman Strike continued
Illinois Governor Altgeld sympathized with strikers and would not interfere on behalf of Pullman Co.
Cleveland sent his Attorney General, Olney
Olney placed a mailbag on the train and charged strikers with violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Act
Big battle in Chicago

18. Pullman Strike continued
Injunction issued
Cleveland sent federal troops
Eugene Debs jailed
Converted to Socialism (Helen Keller)
Ran for president for the Socialist Party 5 times

19. The Molly McGuires 1865-77 Irish coal miners in Penn
Destroyed mining co. property
Killed mine superintendents
Infiltrated by Pinkertons
19 strikers executed in the end

20. 1905 The IWW Big John Haywood Militant The Wobblies
Organized miners, immigrants, itinerant farm workers
Violent
Government repression, deportation

21. ALSO…
The Women’s Trade Union League: worked to improve working conditions for women and children
National Consumers’ League: worked for above at the state level

22. Federal Reform Attempts
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade is illegal
Was intended to restrain the power of monopolies
BUT was more often used against strikers
(Pullman) & NOT against monopolies (E.C. Knight case & 14th Amendment)

23. Another Federal Reform Attempt:
The Interstate Commerce Act (1887):
said RR rate discrimination was illegal
and established the ICC: a 5-member non-partisan board to take RR’s to court for violations of the ICA
BUT also did not work: rebates, the ICC, and the Court