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