Labor Unions Dbq

Labor Unions in America have had a history of being messy and relatively unsuccessful. One of their biggest problems were the wages and hours that the workers had worked, this continued from 1875-1900 when they only saw slight changes in the average daily wages, and average daily hours (Document A). Workers found themselves facing a negative general consensus from the American public due to perceived anarchist and socialist relations. Conflict among different labor unions, violence of some labor strikes, and the availability of scrub workers led to unsuccessful strikes and weaker unions. These weak unions, caused foor many many problems for the time being. There were a good number of labor unions during the late 19th century and they all

As strikes and protests became more violent, more people started to see these movements as radical. The newspapers had a pivotal role in the labeling of labor movements as radical. In Document B, a New York Times article claims that the strike “is nothing more than a rash and spiteful demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless to understand their own interests.” The Great Railroad Strike and the Haymarket Riot were both strikes that ended in the deaths of protesters and government officials. These protests sparked public contempt towards organized labor and solidified the radical label on organized

Not all of these protests were carried out peacefully however. One of the sole reasons for why organized labor did not succeed was because the violence that came with many of the strikes and protests. The Great Railroad Strike, Haymarket Riot, Homestead Strike and the Pullman Strike were all important strikes during the late 20th century and all involved some sort of violence on the part of protesters and government officials. Document G shows a firsthand account of the result of labor violence. In the Haymarket Riot, protesters threw bombs at police to protest the killings of workers by policeman. In the Homestead Strike, Pinkerton agents were brought in to suppress the violent protesters. An outsider could hardly tell that people were protesting wages and working conditions when it looked like the police and protesters were fighting a war. Protesters using violence to gain rights in the workplace was not an effective technique by any means and as a result none of the violent strikes resulted in gains for organized labor groups. When people were being killed and federal troops had to be called in to suppress the violence, it was hard for unions to gain any leverage on