1. Unions The hopes to improve wages

2. Why Unions  Help to improve wages, hours, and working conditions  Tasks were dull and repetitive in bad conditions  Lint, dust, and toxic fumes  Lack of Safety devices caused a lot of injuries  1900, $0.22/hour for 59 hours a week  $12.98/week

3. Deflation  Rise of the value of the dollar  Caused the prices of products to fall  Led to the idea of unions

4. Two types of workers  Craft workers-Special Skills and training  Machinist  Iron molders  Stone cutters  Shoe makers  Printers  Higher Wages  Controlled how they used their time.  Common laborers- Few skills and low wages

5. Types of unions  Trade Unions  Unions composed of similar skilled workers  Industrial Unions  United all workers in a particular industry

6. Troubles for unions  Companies required workers to sign oaths against joining unions  Blacklist  Workers that were considered trouble makers were fired and put on a list not to hire  Lockouts  Companies locked the door and refused to pay workers  Hired people to work in place of the current workers

7. Great Railroad Strike  1877, Baltimore and Ohio cut wages for the third time  West Virginia, workers walked off the job and blocked the tracks  80,000 workers on strike  100 dead  Over $10 million in damages  Smashed equipment  Tore up tracks  Blocked Rail Service

8. Knights of Labor  1869, opposed strikes, used boycotts  Supported arbitration: 3 rd party helps workers and employers to reach an agreement  8 hour work day  Equal pay for women  Abolition of child labor  Worker owned factories  Welcomed Women and African Americans

9. Knights of Labor-Decline Early Successes  Convinced one of Jay Gould’s railroads to reverse wage cuts  Grew from 100,000 to 700,000 members Haymarket Riots  Strike on May 1, 1886  May 3 rd -Four people were killed at a protest  May 4 th -3,000 people came to hear speeches about the killings  Bombs went off  100 people injured

10. Homestead Strike  1892  Steel Mill owned by Andrew Carnegie  Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and tin workers  Union contract about the expire  Cut wages by 20%  Pinkerton Workers came to replace workers  14 hour battle left people dead  Militia came in to take control

11. Pullman Strike  Laid off workers  Slashed wages  Refused to handle Pullman Cars  Attached mail cars to Pullman cars  Violation of Federal Law to not deliver mail