1. The Organized Labor Movement
Essential Question:
How did the rise of labor unions shape relations among workers, big business and government?

2. Workers
12hrs a day; 6 days a week
Worked in sweatshops
Owners clocked work and break hours
Employees fined for breaking rules or working slowly
Workspace was dim, overheated and poorly ventilated
Machines so dangerous, people lost their lives

3. Families in the Workforce
Women started working
Children contributed to family income
Children suffered from physical and mental growth
Labor unions worked to stop child labor

4. Space rented to employees; if you left the job, you lost your home
Company Towns
Live near workspace
Space rented to employees; if you left the job, you lost your home
Portion of income would go towards housing
Segregated by race

5. Labor Unions Used collective bargaining techniques
Negotiated for 10hr. Workdays
Socialism (society controls wealth, not private few; wealth should be spread evenly)
Led by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels in Communist Manifesto
Rejected by American public
Labor unions used ideas to support goals for social reform

6. Knights of Labor—union for ppl in trades
Led by Terence Powderly
Encourage boycotts and negotiations
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Craft union led by Samuel Gompers
Had a membership fee used as a pension for workers on strike

8. Strikes in the US Haymarket—1886 Demonstration for 8 hour workday
Strikes erupted into fights with strikebreakers
Police had to stop it
3 days later, protesters gather at Haymarket Square in Chicago
Protestor throws a bomb, kills a policeman

9. Homestead—1892 Carnegie Steel plan cuts wages Workers strike
Bring in Pinkertons (private police who break up strikes)
Pinkertons kill and wound strikers; lasts 2 weeks
Caused by growing depression

10. Pullman—1893—Pullman Palace Car Company
Laid off workers and reduced wages by 25%
Did not reduce housing rent
American Railway Union led by Eugene Debs got RR workers across the US to strike
300,000 strike; halts mail delivery
President Grover Cleveland sends federal troops to end the strike

12. This image, a response to the Pullman Strike, depicts labor leader Eugene V. Debs perched atop a railroad bridge.
RR cars-fruit, beef, fresh veggies
bridge is cutting off traffic of RR
Factories have closed signes---helped mobilize opinons against strikers

13. Target Goal
Create a cartoon (at least 6 panels) to outline how the rise of labor unions shaped relations among workers, big business and government.
When you’re finished, work on Vocab 1 or target goals from this week you have not finished.