1. Most industrial workers worked six days a week for more than 12 hours a day. Employees were not entitled to vacation, sick leave, unemployment compensation, or reimbursement for injuries suffered on the job.
Yet injuries were common. In dirty, poorly-ventilated factories, workers had to perform repetitive, mind-dulling tasks, sometimes with dangerous or faulty equipment. In 1882, an average of 675 laborers were killed in work-related accidents each week. In addition, wages were so low that most families could not survive unless everyone held a job. Therefore, with little time or energy left for school, child laborers forfeited their futures to help their families make ends meet.

2. More industry = more labor -mostly unskilled labor
URBAN LABOR
-increased 400% by 1890
More industry = more labor
-mostly unskilled labor
Machines doing labor
-assembly line work
Making one part, move along to another station
“When I was younger, girls learned full trades, now they do not—one stitches seams, another makes buttonholes, and another sews on the buttons. Once girls learned to do all these things…Now you see then in those shops, seated in long rows, crowded together in a hot, close atmosphere… working at 20 and 25 cents a day.”
~Aurora Phelps

3. How the Other Half Lives
WORKING CONDITIONS
-sweatshops
Harsh workshops in tenements
-low wages
Owners make large profits
-long hours
14-hour days, 6-7 days a week
-dangerous conditions
Hot, poorly-ventilated, dangerous jobs
-company towns
“The bulk of the sweater’s work is done in the tenements, which the law that regulates factory labor does not reach…In [them] the child works unchallenged from the day he is old enough to pull a thread. There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat while they work, and the ‘day’ is lengthened at both ends far into the night.”
~Jacob Riis
How the Other Half Lives

4. WORKING CONDITIONS
-child labor
Jobs to support the family

5. -tried to improve conditions of workers used strikes (refuse to work)
LABOR UNIONS
-tried to improve conditions of workers
used strikes (refuse to work)
Collective bargaining (negotiations)
Arbitration (3rd party makes decisions for both groups)
-owners countered
blacklists (do not hire)
lockouts (keep employees out)
scabs (strike breakers)
injunctions (court order to stop something, strikes)
“…I can never get a day’s work under that company or any other around here, for…I’ll be blacklisted. Then what will my wife and my babies do?”
~American Worker

6. Damage done by railroad strikers in the 1877 railroad strike
GOV’T INTERVENTION
-RR strike of 1877
Cut wages, railroad workers strike until wages raised
-violent protests
Freight/passenger traffic stopped
Strikers tearing up railroads
-Federal troops sent to restore order by President Hayes
Damage done by railroad strikers in the 1877 railroad strike

7. “An injury to one is the concern of all.” ~Motto: Knights of Labor
-Terence Powderly
-any kind of labor accepted
Skilled and unskilled labor from all sexes and races
-eventually failed
Used strikes as a last resort
Strikes failed
-weakness??
Advocated arbitration, which was not strong enough
“An injury to one is the concern of all.”
~Motto: Knights of Labor

8. ~August Spies, Haymarket Square
-Chicago strike of 1886
Protesting police brutality used at another strike
-bomb thrown at protest
Police fire back at crowd
-several people killed
Strikers blamed, four executed
-union activity was blamed for the violence
Public turns against labor unions
“They have grown rich and powerful on your labor. They amass stupendous fortunes, while you, who bring them into existence, are suffering from want. In answer to your pleadings they ask for the bodies of your little children, to utilize them in their gold mints, to make dollars out of them!”
~August Spies, Haymarket Square

9. American Federation of Labor -Samuel Gompers
AFL
American Federation of Labor
-Samuel Gompers
-only allowed skilled labor to join
Only allowed white males
-made strikes a legitimate weapon for union
Successful strikers
Also used collective bargaining
“Show me the country in which there is no strikes, and I will show you the country in which there is no liberty.”
~Samuel Gompers

10. INDUSTRIAL UNIONS
-union combining all workers of an industry
Skilled and unskilled
Ex: railroads
-Eugene V. Debs
-United RR workers
All railroad workers in one union
-Pullman Coach strike, 1894
Turns violent
-Government steps in –Debs is jailed
Railroad union failed

11. “The militant, not the meek, shall inherit the earth.”
Women Workers
-worked for better conditions for miners
Dangerous jobs for kids
-used women and children in the strike process
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
-advocated against child labor
Young children work in harsh conditions for low pay
“The militant, not the meek, shall inherit the earth.”
~Mother Jones

12. Pressure on Gov’t
-public supports the plight of workers but likes cheap products
Do not fight for reform at first
-Triangle Fire
Public can no longer ignore working conditions
-gov’t regulations on working conditions and child labor
-Homestead Strike, 1892
Carnegie Steel workers
-violent strike between workers and management
Strikers force out Pinkertons but Union finally gives up

13. Industrial Managers eventually take control of labor unions, forcing them to give up some of their power. They forbade union meetings, fired union members, and forced “yellow-dog” contracts. The federal government then helped the employers by pointing toward the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which stipulated that no one could interfere with Interstate Commerce. Because most of the strikes did interfere in some way (ex: destroying railroad cars), most unions lost the ability to strike without federal interference.