The Rise of Labor Unions

Labor Unions: My Questions Name three issues that unskilled workers often dealt with during this time period. Why was the Great Railroad Strike important to the creation of unions? What was the Haymarket Riot?

Industrialization Creates Work The Industrial Revolution in America created a huge demand for unskilled workers in the factory, building railroads and cities, mining coal, and more. The incredible demand for workers attracted people from around the world to flock to industrial cities for work.

Unskilled Workers Because factories and other wealthy employers were looking to make huge profits, they only wanted to hire unskilled or low-skilled workers who did not have skills that made them more expensive to hire. These workers were made to do monotonous, hard work like shoveling dirt and lift heavy machinery for usually more than twelve hours a day.

Unskilled Workers Continued By the 1880s 1/3 of the labor force in industrial work was unskilled. City workers often had to drift from city to city and industry to industry to find consistent work because businesses were known to constantly let go of workers for dumb reasons or no reason at all.

Dangerous Work Workers were often exposed to working environments that could be fatal. Both in factories and mines, workers were known to acquire industrial diseases, like black and brown lung. In 1889, the first year the government took track of work-related injuries, 2,000 railroad workers were killed and more than 20, 000 were injured.

Workers Compensation & Safety Regulations Disabled workers and workers’ widows received little if anything from employers. Bosses often fought against the government when it tried to implement new safety and health standards. The reason: bosses said new regulations would be too expensive to enforce.

Horrible Pay In the late 1870s most industrial workers made just $1.30 a day. Bricklayers and blacksmiths took in a little over $3 a day. Unskilled laborers in Southern mills had it the worst; they made just 84 cents a day. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1% of America at the time had 50% of the money. The Vanderbilts, one of the wealthiest families in America at the time, was known to throw parties that cost over $250,000—which would equal $4,000,000 today.

Rise of the Workers Upset with their working conditions and low wages, workers across the country turned to organized strikes and riots. Between 1881-1905 almost 37,000 strikes took place, involving seven million workers. Violence usually erupted as strikers attacked employers’ property and the “scab” workers meant to replace them.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 In the summer of 1877 the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad announced a 10 percent pay cut from its workers. Angry workers in West Virginia, already upset that their pay had been reduced from $70 to $30 a month, decided to walk out on strike. Soon the strike spread to major cities like Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The Great Railroad Strike Continued Over 500,000 workers from different businesses joined the strike in support of the railroad laborers. With so many workers refusing to go to work, the nation was paralyzed. In Pittsburgh, 40 strikers were shot by state troops while strikers managed to cause $2 million worth of damage to the railroads. Because of the violence against workers and how powerful the workers were when they went on strike together, many workers decided to join unions for the first time following the Great Railroad Strike.

Railroad Destroyed from the Great Strike

The Haymarket Riot On May 3, 1886, Chicago police shot and killed four workers striking unfair conditions at the McCormick reaper plant. The next day at a protest rally, someone threw a bomb from a nearby building that killed seven police men. In response, the police began to fire haphazardly into the crowd, killing and injuring dozens of bystanders.

Food For Thought: Do you think this is a pro-police or pro-union drawing of the Haymarket Riot?

The Haymarket Riot Aftermath Government response was swift and brutal. With no evidence, police arrested eight pro-union men and convicted all of them for murder. Four of them were executed while one committed suicide in prison. Finally, in 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining three, claiming that the convictions were unfair and without evidence.

The Rise of Labor Unions With the widespread strikes, laborers throughout the country recognized that when they organized together they were a powerful force. The brutal violence against workers also motivated many to band together against their oppressors. However, if the workers themselves were violent, bad publicity could negatively affect union numbers. Often workers turned to labor unions like the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor.