The Rise of Labor Unions

 

The Industrial Revolution led to factory owners taking advantage of workers:

            paying low wages for long hours

            employing women and children for lesser wages

            introduced machines which created unskilled, boring work

            making workers keep up with the speed of machines

            work conditions that ere unsafe, unsanitary, and badly lighted

 

Individual bargaining was ineffective because bosses

            didn’t have to meet the worker’s demands

            could fire an individual without hurting production

 

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: uniting as a group to press demands on bosses

            workers could threaten a strike to shut down production

 

To bargain collectively, workers formed labor unions

 

Before the Civil War Unions were unsuccessful because they:

            were small, local and inexperienced

            lacked financial resources

            faced hardships in trying to organize women and children

            couldn’t deal with immigrants who would work for any wage      

            lost support when workers moved west     

            did not receive support of courts “unlawful conspiracies”

            did not receive support of public opinion in a mainly agricultural society

 

After the Civil War, Unions began to grow because

            size of corporations made workers realize the need to organize

            large mills and factories allowed workers the opportunity to organize

            courts began to have a more favorable attitude toward unions

            labor leaders had gained experience

            frontier closed which eliminated the safety valve for workers

 

The Railroad Strike of 1877 (which became bloody and was put down by federal troops) showed workers the need to organize better and to create stronger unions for their cause

 

Knights of Labor

American Federation of Labor

CIO

           

In 1996 only 14 percent of workers in the US were Union members