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Labor Unions Essay Research Paper Labor UnionsGROWTH (стр. 1 из 2)

Labor Unions Essay, Research Paper

Labor Unions

GROWTH OF THE FACTORY

In colonial America, most of the manufacturing was done by hand in a home. Labor

took place in workshops attached to the side of a home. As towns grew into

cities, the demand for manufactured goods increased. Some workshop owners began

hiring helpers to increase production. Relations between the employer and helper

were generally harmonious. They worked side by side, had the same interests and

held similar political views.

The factory system that began around the mid 1800’s brought great changes. The

employers no longer worked beside their employees. They became executives and

merchants who rarely saw their workers. They were less concerned with their

welfare than with the cost of their labor. Many workers were angry about the

changes brought by the factory system. In the past, they had taken great pride

in their handicraft skills, and now machines did most of the work, and they were

reduced from the status of craft workers to common laborers. The were also

replaced by workers who would accept lower wages. The Industrial Revolution

meant degradation rather than progress.

As the factory system grew, many workers began to form labor unions to protect

their interests. The first union to hold regular meetings and collect dues was

organized by Philadelphia shoemakers in 1792. Soon after, carpenters and

leather workers in Boston and printers in New York also organized unions.

Labor’s tactics in those early times were simple. Members of a union would

agree on the wages they thought were fair. They pledged to stop working for

employers who would not pay that amount. They also sought to compel employers

to hire only union members.

CONSPIRACY LAWS

Employers found the courts to be an effective weapon to protect their interests.

In 1806, eight Philadelphia shoemakers were brought to trial after leading an

unsuccessful strike. The court ruled that any organizing of workers to raise

wages was an illegal act. Unions were “conspiracies” against employers and the

community. In later cases, courts ruled that almost any action taken by unions

to increase wages might be criminal. These decisions destroyed the

effectiveness of the nation’s early labor unions.

Not until 1842 was the way opened again for workers to organize. That year

several union shoemakers in Boston were brought to trial. They were charged

with refusing to work with non-union shoemakers. A municipal court judge found

the men guilty of conspiracy. But an appeal to a higher court resulted in a

victory for labor unions generally. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that it was

not unlawful for workers to engage peacefully in union activity. It was their

right to organize, he said. Shaw’s decision was widely accepted. For many years

following this decision, unions did not have to fear conspiracy charges.

UNION STRUGGLES

In the next two decades, unions campaigned for a 10-hour working day and against

child labor. A number of state legislatures responded favorably. In 1851, for

example, New Jersey passed a law calling for a 10-hour working day in all

factories. It also forbade the employment of children under 10 years old.

Meanwhile trade unions were joining together in cities to form federations. A

number of skilled trades organized national unions to try to improve their

wages and working conditions. The effort to increase wages brought about

hundreds of strikes during the 1850s. None was as extensive, however, as a

strike of New England shoemakers in 1860. The strike started in Lynn,

Massachusetts, when factory workers were refused a three-dollar increase in

their weekly pay. It soon spread to Maine and New Hampshire. Altogether, about

20,000 workers took part in the strike. It ended in a victory for the

shoemakers. Similar victories were soon won by other trade unions. These

successes led to big increases in union membership. Yet most American workers

were generally better off than workers in Europe and had more hope of improving

their lives. For this reason, the majority did not join labor unions.

In the years following the Civil War (1861-1865), the United States was

transformed by the enormous growth of industry. Once the United States was

mainly a nation of small farms. By 1900, it was a nation of growing cities, of

coal and steel, of engines and fast communications. Though living standards

generally rose, millions of industrial workers lived in crowded, unsanitary

slums. Their conditions became desperate in times of business depressions. Then

it was not unusual for workers to go on strike and battle their employers.

Between 1865 and 1900, industrial violence occurred on numerous occasions.

Probably the most violent confrontation between labor and employers was the

Great Railway Strike of 1877. The nation had been in the grip of a severe

depression for four years. During that time, the railroads had decreased the

wages of railway workers by 20 percent. Many trainmen complained that they

could not support their families adequately. There was little that the trainmen

could do about the wage decreases. At that time, unions were weak and workers

feared going on strike; there were too many unemployed men who might take their

jobs. Yet some workers secretly formed a Trainmen’s Union to oppose the

railroads.

Then, in 1877, four big railroads announced that they were going to decrease

wages another 10 percent. In addition, the Pennsylvania line ordered freight

train conductors to handle twice as many cars as before. On July 16, a strike

began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia. The strike quickly

spread to other lines. On July 19, Pennsylvania Railroad workers at Pittsburgh

refused to let freight trains move. (The strikers let passenger trains move

freely because they carried United States mail.) The next day the governor sent

statemilitiamen to oust the strikers from the freight yard. But these men were

from Pittsburgh. They had many friends and relatives among the strikers. Soon

they were mingling with the crowd of men, women and children at the freight yard.

The next day 600 militiamen arrived from Philadelphia. They were ordered to

clear the tracks at the freight yard. The soldiers advanced toward the crowd

and shooting erupted. In the aftermath, 20 people in the crowd lay dead. Many

more were wounded. News of the killings triggered rioting and fires in the

Pittsburgh railyards. President Rutherford Hayes ordered federal troops to

Pittsburgh to end mob violence. When they arrived, the fighting had already

ended. In the smoking ruins, they found the wrecks of more than 2,000 railroad

cars. Dozens of buildings lay in ashes.

Many strikers were sent to jail and others lost their jobs. A large part of the

public was shocked by the violence in Pittsburgh and other cities. Some people

were convinced that miners, railroad workers and other laborers were common

criminals. Legislatures in many states passed new conspiracy laws aimed at

suppressing labor. But the Great Railway Strike of 1877 helped the workers in

some ways. A few railroads took back the wage cuts they had ordered. More

important was the support given to the strike by miners, iron workers and

others. It gave labor an awareness of its strength and solidarity.

KNIGHTS OF LABOR

The Railway Strike led many workers to join a growing national labor

organization. It had a grand name–the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of

Labor. It was founded in 1869 by a small group of Philadelphia clothing workers.

Their union had been unable to organize effectively. The reason, they believed,

was that its members were too well-known. Employers fired them and then put

their names on a “blacklist.” Other employers would not hire anyone whose name

appeared on the list. The garment workers came to two conclusions:

Secrecy was needed to protect union members against employer spies.

Labor organizations would fail if they were divided into separate craft unions.

Instead, labor should be organized in one big union of both skilled and

unskilled workers.

Membership in the Knights of Labor was open to wage earners over 18 years of age

regardless of race, sex or skill. New members had to take an oath of secrecy.

They swore that they would never reveal the name of the order or the names of

its members.

The program of the Knights of Labor called for: an eight-hour working day, laws

establishing a minimum weekly wage, the use of arbitration rather than strikes

to settle disputes, laws to protect the health and safety of industrial workers,

equal pay for equal work, an end to child labor under 14 years of age and

government ownership of railroads, telegraphs and telephones.

It was impossible for the Knights to operate in complete secrecy. Rumors of

their activities reached the press. Newspaper stories usually exaggerated the

strength of the order. Under pressure from public opinion, the Knights began to

operate openly. But they were still forbidden to reveal the name of any member

to an employer.

Membership in the Knights increased slowly. By 1884, the order had only 52,000

members. But that year workers led by Knights of Labor organizers went on

strike against two big railroad companies. Both strikes ended in complete

victories for the Knights. Now workers everywhere rushed to join the order.

Within two years membership in the Knights rose to 150,000. Newspapers warned

their readers about the power of the Knights. One of them said, “Their leaders

can shut most of the mills and factories, and disable the railroads.” Many

people associated the order with dangerous radicals.

Later railroad strikes by the Knights met with defeat. The order was not nearly

as powerful as it had seemed. Workers began to leave it in great numbers.

Within 10 years of its greatest victories, the Knights of Labor collapsed.

“BREAD AND BUTTER” UNIONISM

As the Knights declined, a new labor organization began to challenge it for

supremacy. This was the American Federation of Labor (AFL). It was formed in

1886 by Samuel Gompers, a leader of the Cigarmakers’ Union.

Gompers believed that craft unions of skilled workers were the best kind.

Unskilled workers were easily replaced when they went on strike. Craft workers

could not be replaced easily. Gompers had no use for the Knights of Labor,

which combined all workers in one big union.

The American Federation of Labor began with a core of six craft unions. They

were cigarmakers, carpenters, printers, iron molders, steel molders and

glassmakers. The new organization was not an immediate success. For 10 years,

the AFL and the Knights battled each other. They invaded each other’s territory,

encouraged revolts and welcomed each other’s members into their own ranks. They

even supplied strikebreakers against each other. But the tide was running

against the Knights. The AFL, led by Gompers, grew steadily in size and power.

By 1904, it had 1.75 million members and was the nation’s dominant labor

organization.

At this time, many workers in Europe were joining revolutionary labor movements

which advocated the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a new

socialist economic system. Most American workers, however, followed the lead of

Gompers, with his highly pragmatic approach to problems of labor. They strove

to organize strong unions so that they could demand a greater share in the

wealth that they helped to produce. They were not interested in destroying the

economic structure of the country but in making it work more effectively for

their benefit.

Gompers believed that unions should be primarily concerned with the day-to-day

welfare of their members and should not become involved in politics. He also

was convinced that socialism would not succeed in the United States but that

practical demands for higher wages and fewer working hours could achieve the

goal of a better life for working people. This was known as “bread and butter”

unionism.

There was one outstanding exception to the pragmatic “bread and butter” approach

to unionism which characterized most of American labor. This was the Industrial

Workers of the World (IWW), a revolutionary labor union launched in Chicago in

1905 under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs. The IWW the overthrow of

capitalism through strikes, boycotts and sabotage. Particularly strong among

textile workers, dock workers, migratory farmers and lumberjacks, the union

reached its peak membership of 100,000 in 1912. The IWW had practically

disappeared by 1918, because of federal prosecutions and a national sentiment

against radicalism which began in 1917.

In the early years of the 20th century, a powerful reform movement called

Progressivism swept the country. Its leaders were college professors, ministers,

journalists, physicians and social workers. Their goal was to improve

conditions for all Americans. They wanted to make the political system more

egalitarian. They also wanted to make the nation’s economic system more

democratic. Those who owned the nation’s resources, they said, should share

some of their wealth with the less fortunate. The movement appealed to farmers,

small businessmen, women and laborers. It cut across political party and

regional lines. The Progressive Movement had the support of three United States

presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

The Progressives were concerned about labor’s problems. They were alarmed by the

growing use of court rulings to halt strikes. In 1890, for example, Congress

passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Its purpose was to punish big business

corporations that combined to prevent competition. Yet more and more it was

being used as a weapon against unions. The Progressives were unhappy about the

use of federal troops and state militia against strikers. They were outraged by

inhuman conditions in factories and mines.

The Progressives and the AFL pressured state governments for laws to protect

wage earners. Almost all states passed laws forbidding the employment of

children under 14 years old. Thirty-seven states forbade children under 16

years old to work between 7p.m. and 6a.m. Nineteen states established the

eight-hour day for children under 16 in factories and stores.

The Progressives were also concerned with the hours worked by women in industry.

Forty-one states wrote new or improved laws to protect women workers. Most

limited the work day to nine hours, or the work week to 54 hours.

One of the greatest concerns of the Progressives was the problem of industrial

accidents. They wanted workers to be paid for accidents regardless of cause.

The cost of insurance to cover accidents, they said, should be paid by

employers. By 1917, 13 states had passed workers’ compensation laws. Many

states passed laws to improve safety regulations.

The alliance of Progressives and the AFL also campaigned for federal laws to aid

labor. In response, Congress passed laws to protect children, railroad workers

and seamen. It established a Department of Labor in the president’s Cabinet.

Most important of all, Congress passed the Clayton Act of 1914. Its purpose was

to halt the use of antitrust laws and court injunctions against unions.

During World War I, organized labor made great advances. The federal government

created the War Labor Board to settle disputes by arbitration. Generally the

Board was favorable to wage increases, the eight-hour day and collective

bargaining. This led to a big increase in union membership. In January 1917,

the AFL had 2,370,000 members. By January 1919, it had 3,260,000 members.

RED SCARES AND DEPRESSION

As the 1920s began, organized labor seemed stronger than ever. It was successful

in getting Congress to pass laws that restricted immigration to the United

States. Unions believed that a scarcity of labor would keep wages high. But

events that took place in Europe were already threatening labor’s gains. In

1917, a communist revolution overthrew the government of Russia. Communists also

attempted revolutions in Germany, Hungary and Finland.

Immigrants entering the United States at this time were primarily from southern

and eastern Europe. Many of them, in response to the economic hardship and

social inequality which they found in America’s industrial cities, were

attracted to the utopian promises of socialist, communist and other radical

political groups which advocated a drastic change in American society. There