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Essays on the history of labor unions
The role of unions today
The role of unions today
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The Pullman Strike occurred began on May 11, 1894 as a result of how George Pullman President of Pullman Palace Car Company treated his workers. When economic depression hit in 1893 Pullman degreased his workers’ wages by 25 percent; however, he did not lower the price of rent in his town where many workers lived. Consequently the workers could not pay their rent, some faced starvation, and many fell into debt to the company. At first around 3,000 Pullman workers went on a “wildcat” strike, requesting support from American Railway Union (ARU). Before long 50,000 men stopped working and joined the strike. Asked to intercede Federal Troops went to Chicago, and after much violence the strike ceased. Holding a significant role in U.S history the
During the Railroad Strike of 1877, when large crowds in Baltimore attempted to attack militia breaking up the strike, President Hayes got word of the uprising and personally sent his troops to quell it (DOC B). Many witnesses of the strike used Yellow Journalism to make it seem as if Communists were causing the strike through the use of political cartoons in newspapers, such as “Always killing the goose that lays the golden egg” (DOC C), where the strike was purposefully invalidated to break up the labor movement. Nevertheless, the largeness of the uprising made strikes become more widely-known, causing employers to be slower to slash wages in fear of a bigger
Cotton Mather and John Woolman were two men who had very passionate ideas for the slaves. “Negro Christianized” written by Cotton Mather was an appeal to the slave owners to convert their slaves to Christianity. He primarily focuses on the idea that slaveholders should treat the slaves with dignity and respect along with converting them to Christianity. In John Woolman’s work “Some Considerations On Keeping of Negroes,” he talks about how slavery was detrimental to the slaves and the slave holder. He illustrated through his own conduct the principles of compassion and good will that formed the central message of his itinerant ministry. Which one is more compelling one might ask, to me I think that John Woolman’s work was more compelling because he received the revelation that we must start with our children first in order to abolish slavery. Mather idea of slavery was genuine, but he lacked the overall revelation of how the slaves should’ve been treated.
James B. Weaver illustrates the true damage of monopolies on the public in “A Call to Action” (Document 4). Weaver, a two-time candidate for president of the United States, addresses the meticulous tactics which trusts and monopolies use to increase their profit at the expense of the public and asserts that their main weapons are, ”threats, intimidation, bribery, fraud, wreck, and pillage.” Arguments such as Weaver’s, suggest and end to the end of the laissez-faire capitalism that monopolies are sustained upon. Laissez-faire capitalism is essentially a system where the government takes no position in the affairs of businesses and does not interfere, no matter what harm is being done. This ideology dominated the business world of the century and allowed for vast unemployment, low wages, and impoverishment. Soon, laborers also begin to express their dismay with the way that such businesses are run and the treatment of workers in the railroad industry. An instance of this being the Pullman Strike of 1894. In 1894, laborers went on a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company; they issued a statement regarding their strike in June (Document 6). Workers are repulsed by Pullman’s exertion of power over several institutions and how his greed affects his competitors, who must reduce their wages to keep up with his businesses. This incident inspires many to take
The 1919 steel strike was an attempt to organize the United States steel industry after World War One. The strike lasted about five months, and was unsuccessful. It began on September 21, 1919, and collapsed on January 8, 1920. It was started by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, or the AA. The AA had formed in 1876. It was a union of iron and steel workers which was very committed to creating unionism, but advancements in technology had decreased the amount of skilled workers in the industries.
By the summer of 1877, at least three million Americans - an estimated 25 percent of the nation's workforce -were searching for employment. That May, the Pennsylvania Railroad had imposed its second 10 percent wage cut in two years.A few weeks later, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad b and o announced ten percent pay cuts for workers making more than a dollar a day-including comparable cuts for officials-and at about the same time announced payment of a 10 percent dividend. For b and o workers, this was too much-it was the second 10 percent wage cut in a year.On July 16, frustrated workers and sympathizers blocked the movement of b and o trains in Baltimore, Maryland, and one hundred miles west, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Word of the strike action spread quickly. Workers in Philadelphia, Reading, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Columbia, Harrisburg, Altoona, Johnstown, Derry, Washington, Erie, and Pittsburgh halted all commercial train traffic. Strike organizers in Pittsburgh struggled to maintain
“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
George Pullman was not always believed to be a cruel boss. George Pullman started off believing that anyone could be successful if they worked hard enough. But as his business grew, he took this belief too far, furthering his own company by working his employees hard, treating his employees like slaves. There were many factors included in how the Pullman strike started. George Pullman and the company’s treatment of employees, how the town of Pullman, Illinois reacted to their treatment, other strikes that led up to the Pullman employee unhappiness and their reaction, the Pullman Strike.
I think that the significance of the Pullman Porters in American labor history is their long struggle to be recognized as a union and to for the first time collectively bargain with their employer. George Pullman was known for being strongly aggressive against employees who wanted to unionize. Employees were fired and in occasions thrown out of cars miles away from their homes as punishment for being caught wanting to form a union. Despite all these dangers The Pullman Porters were brave enough to stand for their rights. They formed The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925 led by A. Philip Randolph (Museum pamphlet). Thanks to
The Transportation Revolution in the 1800s, sparked up industrialization and the building of railroads that stimulated every other industry causing an economic boom known as the Gilded Age. From the outside, America seemed like the place to go to make all your dreams come true. But in reality, in was an era of serious social problems mainly caused by an economy with a free market policy, low tariffs, low taxes, less spending, and a hands-off government. This type of economy would eventually lead to the development of monopolies. These monopolies would then, in turn, lead to worker uprisings ‒caused by the suppression of unions created mostly by unskilled workers‒ that would contribute to the rapid rise and downfall of America. An example of this suppression is the Homestead Strike of 1892; due to hostility created by the unions, the employer fired all the workers, and rehired them on the basis that there would not be any more unions. After the workers started working again, the conditions were still unbearable, so the workers shut down the facility. The police got involved, the workers were pushed back, and the facility was reopened union free.
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.
Pullman Palace Car Company made luxury railroad cars. The people who lived in the town of Pullman payed rent by deductions from their wages. The owner of the town and company George Pullman had workers’ wages get cut in addition to workers getting leadoff. Many people who worked for the company whose wages got cut had trouble affording the standard living costs in Pullman and were given “starvation wages.” The organization of the pissed off workers followed. The workers would go on a nationwide strike organized by the American Railway Union and was led by a man named Eugene debs. Eugene and his union was so powerful because they possessed the ability to paralyze the production of the railroad industry. George Pullman tried to hire people to break up the strike but ends up being unsuccessful. Federal troops were sent in and the court rules that workers must return back to work and the strike is ended.
A year before the incident in which the fire happened, the workers went on a strike asking for shorter hours, better pay, and safer working conditions. They became leaders in what became the largest women's strike in American history. Some
The strike was a youth led campaign, triggered by the want of change in the way two major heads of the newspaper industry Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers compensated their child labor force.
1970 U.S. Postal Strike made history as one of the ten (10) historical strike in the nation. The strike affected over 210,000, people beginning in the New York City area, that generated all over the United States. This strike happens during Nixon administration where the U.S. postal specialists were not permitted to take part in aggregate dealing. The worker was tied of the long-drawn-out disappointment with wages, working conditions. Disappointed with the disadvantages and administration drove the postal laborers in New York City to strike. Higher wage was demanded by the union, and better work conditions. This strike is also label as the shortest strike in history in which it only lasted for eight days and the worker was not fired because of the president of the united states Richard Nixon.