Introduction The struggle for a better pay and less labor in America started on a low note with less people having the courage to join in. Eventually, many people rose up against the employers, riots and collective strikes stroke the country, as many people protested against the treatment they got from the capitalists. As Jeremy Brecher explains in The Great Upheaval, it all started in July 1877 when many strikes were help across America. The workers halted the operations of the most important company, the railroads. They fought the police, the state militia and even the federal troops or the army. Chicago was a major production that attracted people from all parts of the country. The town was, therefore, a good place to start the strikes, …show more content…
with the support of the railroaders and miners among many other workers. All they wanted was a fair pay and less working hours and thus protested against the ten percent pay cut that was proposed by their employers. Nonetheless, this came at a cost following the Haymarket bombing at a labor demonstration in 1866. This affair was a major setback for the US labor movement. The Background of the Strikes On Monday July 16th 1877 in a town called Martinsburg in West Virginia, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad announced a 10 percent pay cut which was a second one in a period of 8 months. The workers put down their tools and gathered at their offices in protest. The train operators, engineers and firemen abandoned their work and the rest of the workers declined to replace them. They demanded the pay cut to be rescinded, failure to which no train would be allowed to operate. The mayor who came to assist the B&O officials ordered the arrest of the strike leaders but their supports would not let it happen, so they gave up. The B&O officials with the help of Governor Henry Mathews tried to use the Berkeley Light Guards to restore order but the protesters overpowered them too. On the second day morning, the transportation master in Martinsburg ordered a train to operate but the strikers stopped it, threatened to kill the engineer who ran away and the train was uncoupled and ran into the roundhouse. At one point, a train attempted to leave guarded by the militia and the Light Guards. One striker named William Vandergriff moved the switch to stop it and shot a policeman who tried to turn the switch back. He was in turn shot and this was a dawn for the spontaneous nationwide protest, as the officials at Martinsburg had given up. Many of the workers used the company cars and misused the available resources across all the railroad offices across the country and they were soon grounded. One week before the cut was effected, the engineers had protested in New Jersey, later formed a committee with the firemen to fight against it but was never listened to2. They wanted better working schedules which would allow them have time with their families and rest and they also wanted the system used to put the wages down by considering the length of service and efficiency of the workers stopped. One leader of the Pennsylvania Railroad known as Tom Scott intimidated this committee and they agreed the cut, against the expectations of the workers. The only other way was forming a secret union, the Trainmen Union which was started by the workers at Pittsburgh, Port Wayne and Chicago lines. It spread across the country but there were spies who gave the railroad officials all the details. Four days after its formation, its leaders were fired. On June 24th, 40 Men tried to start a strike and were fired, together with all union members, causing panic and paralyzing the strike. The workers were left with only one option; to strike in unison without relying on the leaders. The trend continued as many more people joined the strike, including the few who had offered to remain obedient to the employers. Women and children joined too, to urge the men on. On that Sunday morning, strikers burnt down the freight cars in Pittsburg and other stations. By Monday morning, about 104 trains and 2000 cars had been destroyed. Almost in all towns, the trains had been non-operational apart from the passenger trains that the strikers allowed through. In Chicago, the strike spread with strikers along Canal Street and Blue Street Avenue closing down factories and calling out on people to join the strike. They forced the employers in the stockyards and gasworks to sign a pay rise to $2 a day as many more people joined the strike. Amidst all these protests, many people had been injured and others had lost their lives. Many companies had counted losses, as all workers disrupted their factories and forced their closure. In 1886, as Oscar Ameringer explains, many people had joined the Knights of labor. He says that with everyone aboard, success was easy and almost guaranteed. Impacts on the US Labor Movement On May 4th 1886 in Chicago, a labor protest rally supporting the eight-hours-day demand, a bomb was thrown by the anarchists and killed a policeman and injured many other people. Oscar Neebe was among the people arrested in connection to the bombing. He confessed to have been a member of the labor movement since 1875, but not involved in the bombing. Oscar Ameringer explains in his autobiography how he received the fatal news regarding the bombing at Haymarket in Chicago. Many of the strikers pulled out, policemen became more brutal and things became more serious. The army of the socialists was fading away. The employers at this point could tell that they did not have all the control above their workers. They were tired of being underpaid and overworked. The legal proceedings saw eight people arrested, seven of whom were sentenced to death with Oscar Neebe getting 15 years in prison. The aftermath of the bombing was a major shock among many of the strikers.
As Oscar Ameringer puts it, “the news of the bombing came as an exceedingly cold blanket for the strikers. Many of the sympathizers started quitting, the weaker Knights broke ranks and the army of the social revolution started melting down5. The police grew more numerous and ill-mannered and so did the anger of the diminishing irreconcilables.” His statement shows that the labor movement had lost the initial energy and will to push on. Many of its members started seeing that the push had gone way too far and maybe many more people would …show more content…
die. The sympathizers had also started condemning the movement of being brutal killers and ill-motivated. On the other hand, it was also a strengthening factor to the capitalists who held the movement responsible. In court, Oscar Neebe tells the jury that the government should be careful to avoid a repetition of the French revolution and to be more flexible and considerate. The labor movement saw the death of the seven people sentenced to death as martyrs. They used the news to make stronger their members. They accused the capitalists of dictatorship. Oscar Neebe during his trial said that it were better to be killed with the rest, to die a quick death rather than rotting in jail. He said that the socialists were doing their best to stop the strikes but the capitalists were mean and wanted to overwork the employees and make money without caring about them. This was a chance for the movement to express their views through the court proceedings. The resistance grew stronger in Chicago and led to the establishment of the Labor Party of Chicago. However, the Haymarket affair had left a bad reputation for the anarchists and had held them back. The hanging of these seven people brought disunity in the labor movement and no matter how much their leader Terence V. Powderly tried to disown them, they remained guilty and accused by the general population. Powderly in his disowning speech gave a list of other anarchists and condemned with all words the acts of the ones arrested and defended the intentions of the labor market, a sign of the disunity in the labor movement.
Conclusion The goal of the nationwide strikes was to achieve a better pay, better working schedules and the eight-hour-day system was their climax. However, the strikers failed to hold one common goal. A part of them had the wrong intentions and some had personal interests. The leader of the movement speaks bitterly about the group of the strikers behind the bombing in Haymarket, saying the principles of the movement never supported such actions. Since 1877, the struggle for better pay was getting intense. More and more people joined masses formed, state after state, spreading in all towns. The wake was popularly known as the ‘insurrection’ that saw significant changes in America. The struggle by the trade unions brought the much-enjoyed work freedom in the current American labor market. The capitalists and socialists’ ideologies led to the struggle and went down in history as the major awakening of the American workers in the 19th
century.
The strike affected much of the country, and it had great influence on public opinion on the rights of workers. It showed how the roles of management and the roles of government handled this situation. The Pullman Strike of 1894 and its aftermath had a huge effect on the course of the labor movement in the United States. The use of federal troops and the labor injunction sent a message to U.S. workers that would not change until the new deal of the 1930s. George Pullman was no longer look at as the great enlightened employer who took care of his workers, but a greedy intolerant man. After the strike he was worried that people would rob him so when he was buried he had it lined in concrete so no one could. The Pullman strike ultimately was unsuccessful at the time. Workers were sent to jail and many couldn’t find any jobs after. Although, it was successful in several ways. The federal government was involved for the first time in history because of a strike, and because they all took a stand for their human rights it impacted the future and how workers are treated
The Industrial Revolution began in England during the late 1700s, and by the end of its era, had created an enormous amount of both positive and negative effects on the world in social, economic, and even political ways. The revolution began to spread across the world, raising the standard of life for the populations in both Europe and North America throughout the 1800s. However, even with all of its obvious benefits, its downsides are nonnegotiable, forcing workers into horrendous living and working conditions, all inside of unkempt cities. While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of the railroad system, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s
The factory whistle blows right in the middle of your favorite dream. You wake up in a startle as you glance at the clock. 5:30 am. You rush to get out of bed, seeing that you have to get to work in 30 minutes. You splash some water on your face, brush your teeth, put on some fine factory clothes, pull your hair back, grab an apple and run as fast as a gazelle. The Industrial Revolution had both positive and negatives on the lives of adults and children during that time period.
“Industrial unions dominated the landscape of the late nineteen century U.S. labor movement.” They gathered all level workers together without discrimination of gender, race, or nationality. They declared the eight-hour workday for the first time when normal work time should be 12. Low wage of workers caused the “Great Strike of 1877”, which began with railroad workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. After the “Great Strike”, industrial union started to
They concentrated on higher wages, shorter hours, and personal issues of workers. The American Federation of Labor’s main weapon was walkouts and boycotts to get industries to succeed to better conditions and higher wages. By the early 1900’s, its membership was up to ½ million workers. Through the years since The Great Depression, labor unions were responsible for several benefits for employees. Workers have safer conditions, higher paying jobs to choose from, and better benefits negotiated for them by their collective bargaining unit.
The impact of the Industrial Revolution was a positive experience for some, but it was a great difficulty for others. Because of the demands for reform and protection for workers arose, government and unions began to take place. That was how the evils of the Industrial Revolution addressed in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
...s became even more desperate at the time of the great depression that ultimately led to the great railway strike, in which many workers lost their lives at the hand of the Pennsylvania militia. This act proved to be a major turning point in the evolution of the labor movement in the United States.
The unions resorted to many forms of tactics such as boycotts, picketing, and the less prominent “closed shop”. The most prevalent of these methods, however, was the formation of riots. During the late 19th century riots included: the Haymarket Square Riots (1886), the Homestead Lockout, and the Pullman Car Company strike. The Haymarket Square Riots of 1886 took place at the McCormick plant in Chicago, Illinois in response to the worker’s need for an eight hour workday. The first two days were innate, but the third day was where the the situation actually instigated the cause. The owner of the plant, McCormick, attempted to bring strikebreakers (scabs), and a battle had begun between the scabs and the strikers. The riot, wistfully, ended the lives of four men when the police began to attempt to impede and halter the situation. These four deaths initiated a chain reaction resulting in the calling for the revenge of the four men by German radical Johann Most. Despite Johann’s reaction, 200 more Chicago policemen ordered the remaining strikers to leave the area. In the crowd, in the moment, a homemade bomb was hurled leading in the death of one policeman; acting as a predecessor of events, this event lead to a shooting between the policemen and the strikers concluding with the death of four workers and seven more policemen; entirely approximately one hundred people were injured. The Haymarket Riots caused public opinion to turn against labor. The Homestead Lockout took place in Homestead, Pennsylvania at Andrew Carnegie’s steel plant and was instigated by Henry Clay Frick’s wage cut. In this riot workers walked out of the company and then Frick ordered company doors to be locked and trapped the workers inside. Employees rebelled and caused about 200 Pinkerton detectives to come up the river to protect company property and created a battle.
There were too many people and there was not enough organization and events in the strike for it to be effective. The strikers plan was weak and they did not have a real style of leadership. It was also hard for the laborers to gain support from the public. Since the great depression, lots of people were scared of what would happen if the mills failed. Some people did not see the dangerous working conditions and could not understand why the union was on strike (Wave, 2012). Most importantly, the strikers could not gain support from the newly elected democratic president. President Roosevelt’s new administration did not benefit the workers and certainly left the middle and lower class in a bind. Since the president’s administration did not support laborers, neither could the state
In his book Death in the Haymarket, James Green recounted the American labor movement in the late 1800s. Green’s main focus in his book was the bombing of Haymarket, which occurred on May 4 of 1886. Beginning as a peaceful protest promoting the eight-hour work day, a bomb was thrown causing devastating consequences. The Haymarket bombing almost ended the labor movement altogether, with unjustified trials and fear implemented amongst all Americans. However, it is important to know that the Haymarket bombing is not just an isolated event. From starting out with wage cuts, to people going on strike, labor unions starting up, to almost losing the labor movement altogether. The Haymarket bombing
The period in American history between 1900 and 1920 was a very turbulent one. Civil unrest was brewing as a result of many pressures placed upon the working class. Although wealth was accumulating at an astonishing rate in America, most people at the lower economic levels were not benefiting from any of it. Worst of all for them, the federal government seemed to be on the side of the corporations. Their helpless situation and limited options is why the coal strike of 1902 is so important.
America had a huge industrial revolution in the late 1800”s. Many changes happened to our great nation, which factored into this. The evidence clearly shows that advancements in new technology, a large wave of immigrants into our country and new views of our government, helped to promote America’s huge industrial growth from the period of 1860-1900.
In addition to these street demonstrations, there were massive waves of workers’ strikes in the mines and steel mills. At first, the government tried to threaten the protesters; the Committee of National Defense announced preparations for a national state of emergency. By the determination of the workers, the Communist realized that talks with the unofficial trade union were unavoidable. The actions of the workers’ forced the Communist regime to begin talking about the trade union movement called Solidarity.... ... middle of paper ... ...(1989 Twenty Years