Growing Pains Work in Factories Pg

Work in Factories After the Civil War, many people moved to cities to find work. This was also true in Tennessee. Factory owners need lots of workers. They hired American workers as well as immigrants. Since so many were looking for jobs, factory owners were able to hire people for low wages.

Work in Factories Entire families were hired, the men for heavy labor and the women and children for lighter work. Work days typically ran from dawn to sunset, with longer hours in winter, resulting in a hour work week. Many families also lived in company owned houses.

Children Go to Work To earn more money, many parents sent their children to work Between 1890 and 1910, the number of working children between the ages of 10 and 15 went from 1.5 million to 2 million. The 1900 census reported that 1 child in every 5 between the ages of 10 and 15 was employed as a full time laborer.

Children Go to Work The pay for children varied from sixty cents to one dollar for eight hours of work. Workers had to be careful because many machines were not safe. Hundreds of workers were killed each year in factory accidents, and thousands were badly hurt.

Owners Against Workers Some workers complained about their working conditions. Others went on strike, or stopped working, as a way to get factory owners to listen to them. Few factory owners listened. They simply fired the workers who wanted better working conditions and hired new ones.

Owners Against Workers As conditions grew worse, many factory workers joined labor unions. A labor union is a group of workers who join together to improve their working conditions. Samuel Gompers was a labor union leader.

Samuel Gompers At the age of 13, Sam went to work in a cigar makers’ shop. He worked hard but was only paid pennies for hours of hard work. Soon he joined a cigar makers’ union and later became the leader in his shop. In 1877 he brought all the separate cigar makers’ unions together into one large union.

Samuel Gompers Members of the union went on strike for a shorter workday and better wages, but the strike failed. Gompers thought that only skilled workers should join the labor union. He knew that if skilled workers went on strike, it would be hard to replace them. Gompers began to organize one large federation of skilled workers.

The AFL In 1886 Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor. As the union grew, business leaders began to listen to its representatives. The AFL wanted to improve working conditions, asked for higher wages, and a shorter workday. In addition the AFL wanted an end to child labor and accident insurance.

Accident Insurance The insurance would pay the wages and medical bills of workers who were hurt on the job.