6.7: Labor in the Gilded Age
yellow-dog contract
"if you want employment, you can't join a union"
lockout
closing the workplace to workers
20% of factory workers ditched the industrial workplace and joined...
labor unions
collecting barganing
workers negotiate with employer about wages and working conditions
National Labor Union
1866 - established by William Sylvis - wanted 8hr work days, banking reform, and an end to conviction labor - attempt to unite all laborers
Gilded Age
1870s - 1890s; time period looked good on the outside, despite the corrupt politics & growing gap between the rich & poor
American Federation of Labor
1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hrs, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.
Homestead Strike (1892)
1892 strike against Carnegie's steelworks in Homestead, Pennsylvania
What are the 5 different ways employers defeated unions?
1: lockout 2: blacklist 3: yellow-dog contract 4: private guards and state militia 5: court injunction
By 1900, _______ of employed Americans worked for wages.
2/3
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
A large number of railroad workers went on strike because of wage cuts. After a month of strikes, President Hayes sent troops to stop the strike (example of how government always sided with employers over workers in the Gilded Age). The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men
Pullman Strike (1894)
A staged walkout strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor. Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened because it was interfering with mail delivery and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The strike highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's continuing willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages.
Haymarket Bombing
On May 4, 1886 workers held a protest in which seven police officers were killed by a protester's bomb. (p. 330)
craft unions
Unions that represent skilled craft workers
In re Debs (1895)
Upheld the right of the court to make an injunction in a labor strike.
Knights of Labor
goals: forming worker cooperatives, abolish child labor, abolish trusts and monopolies, & settling labor problems by arbitration rather than strikes loosely organized & failed
blacklist
list of pro-union workers that employers circulated so they can't get a job
Because of the Haymarket Bombing, the Knights of Labor...
lost popularity and membership
How did workers rebel?
missing work or quitting
Iron Law of Wages (David Ricardo)
raising wages would increase the working population
Court Injunctions
to issue an order forbidding a union from striking
private guards and state militia
used to put down strikes
