III. Unions

A. Workers Unite Low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions led workers to unite. Working conditions as illustrated in The Jungle were common. The Triangle Fire of 1911 in Chicago proved that conditions needed to be improved.

March 25, 1911, A fire raged at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory.

Many workers who had been locked in were forced to jump to their deaths to avoid the flames.

150 workers died, mostly young women and girls.

The Knights of Labor(1869) and The American Federation of Labor(1886) were early unions. Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation Of Labor (AFL).

The AFL and the Knights worked to get: An 8 hour work day. Safe conditions. Higher wages. An end to child labor.

B. Union Activities Organized workers would sometimes refuse to work until their demands were met. This is called a strike. Some unions collected money from members to feed the families of striking workers. These are called dues.

C. Problems for Unions Factory owners and police often attempted to break up strikes. This sometimes led to violence which was usually blamed on the unions. In 1886 a bomb exploded during a strike at the McCormick Company in Chicago. Police opened fire on the strikers killing 10 and injuring 50.

This is remembered as the Haymarket Riot.

Owners fought back against unions by getting injunctions, which were court orders that forced workers to go back to work or go to jail. The Pullman Strike of 1894 The Buffalo Teachers Strike of 2000. Even with the threat of jail, union membership rose to 2.5 million workers by 1914.