Alabama Employee Relations

Before WWI, most black people had been dehumanized, effectively stripping them of the feeling to vote and were bereft from protection from police. “I am in the darkness of the south and I am trying my best to get out,” an inspirational migrant from Alabama wrote to the Chicago Defender. New opportunities for the urban part of the North blos-somed when the war reared its ugly head. The American industrial economy grew vigorously, and as existing European immigrants and white women were unable to meet demand, northern businesses leaned to black southerners to fill their place. When the word of higher wages and ameliorated working conditions spread around, northern businesses were met with positive feed-back as black men, in significant numbers came flocking, thus sprouting a social movement out of urban misery. The War, unknowingly, set the par for work for African Americans and the North became a liberating meadow for all those who sought equality and wanted to avoid the ‘racist menace’.

In his book, “Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War”, Thomas G. Andrews construes the trajectory of a unique labor movement of the southern Colorado coal workers. The labor movement is unique as it integrates the social, ecological and industrial context of the strike for a captivating narration of the Ludlow massacre. Andrew’s account is valuable as he insists that credible conclusions must be grounded in complete and sophisticated provenance as opposed to oversimplified explanations. The intent of this response paper is to analyze the burdensome nature of obtaining coal, substandard pay and the treacherous working conditions. Secondly, the paper discusses the ways which helped employees to achieve autonomy and solidarity.

At the time of Roosevelt’s presidency, workers were treated quite poorly. Corporations provided harsh working conditions, very low wages, and negligible rights. One corrupt corporation was exposed in 1902. The actions from the workers, and Roosevelt’s support were a precedent for the reform enacted in the future. In 1902, a coal mine strike came forth from the workers. The labor accomplished was very dangerous, yet the

help or a ray of help any time soon. Fortunately, through the charismatic leadership of African

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The ensuing conflict, between labor vs. capital, during the late 1800s initiated a struggle of power in the workforce between the rich-industrialists (or corporate leaders) and the middle-class/lower-class workers. The Capitalists had intervened with the protests orchestrated by the workers, ensuring that the power remains with them. The strategies of the industrialists and the unique ways of protesting from the workers, contributes to spur a vigorous argument between the employers and their employees. The workers tried their best to ameliorate their working conditions by forming numerous unions, trying to fix currency (gold to paper) to economically help themselves, refusing to go to work, resorting to violence and non-violence, etc. However, the Corporate leaders kept an upper hand and dissolved the workers’ ambitions by hiring scabs, creating a strong relationship with the military (Pullman strike), controlling and fixing policies at work, hiring immigrants for cheap labor, etc. Throughout the late 1800s, the corporate leaders have been able to successfully prevent workers who had resorted to: forming unions, protests (ex. Pullman strike and Homestead strike), violence (ex. Haymarket Sq. Riot), etc., from achieving a radical solution to the workers issues with the management by using several different strategies including but not limited to: hiring scabs/immigrants in the Homestead strike, using government support in the Pullman strike and keeping the power on their side

In January of 1920, John L. Lewis, the president of the UMWA announced a campaign to unionize the Appalachian coalfields. In southern West Virginia,

Between the years 1870-1900, Americans began to respond to the effects fostered by these corporations. From urban factory workers to rural farmers, Americans began to organize against these big businesses. With mass industrialization, more job’s were made available to women, these jobs were often in factories with terrible conditions, sweatshops. There was a sameness about working in mass production factories. Thus, working in these modern mass production factories created a homogenous environment that diminished individualism and the need for skilled workers. (Doc. C) Strikers were common during this era, workers participated in strikes and joined labor unions, such as The American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, due to the terrible working conditions. The American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, was specifically for skilled workers and argued for better wages and a reduction in working hours. (Doc. G) Although urban workers were greatly impacted by the growth of these corporations, they were not the ones. Farmers, suffered

Eventually, the workers of American Coal, who were once the landowners of the very area they were mining, formed a labor union to fight for better working conditions. The union was met with great opposition by the company’s secret police. As time went on, the coal miners continued to fight for their rights, only to be put down violently by the coal company’s strikebreakers. Union leaders were also fired and blacklisted from the company as a means to put a stop to union activity.

A miner from the 1800s had to work hard for little bits of money. One specific miner went to a school with his three brothers, although it was not a good school since schools back then were not the best, until he was twelve, when he went to pick slate. There were five kids that worked there, one of which was crushed by 50 tons of rock one week before he was to get married. There were many risks in mining, like falling rock, miner’s asthma, powder, smoke, poisonous gases, and bad air. Miners were living unfair lives and that was fixed well (Doc 1). In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt helped the lives of mine workers by decreasing the time for miners to work from 12 hours to 9. Roosevelt also gave workers a wage increase,

Striking workers had not committed any violent acts, but their standoff with obstinate planters was heading toward a violent climax on January 14, 1871. For two days in a row, Henry C. Minor—reinforced by the local “colored” sheriff,

Political advocacy organizations have historically played a big part in securing political rights for minority groups in Western Liberal Democracies. Whether we look to the now infamous Boston Tea Party to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, we observe the importance of political organizations in their quest to ensure equitable rights for the people whom they represent. In context of the early twentieth century, the most prominent group to represent African-American’s in the United States was that of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP, as it is more commonly called, was founded on February 12, 1909 by a mixed group of individuals including but not limited to Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. DuBois and Archibald Grimké with the goal of creating a civil rights organization that would help assist in organizing for civil rights for blacks. One of its most prominent members, Charles Hamilton Houston, who became a part of the organization around the mid-twentieth century, changed the trajectory of the organization for years to come. Hence this essay

Copper is an essential part of the history of the United States, as most industrial machines need copper to operate. Wiring, vehicle construction, and roofing are but a few things made with copper. PDC was one of the leading copper mines in the Arizona. PDC was the “owner” of Morenci, the company owns or controls major services in the town, everything from electric power to the police service (Rosenblum, 1995 p.5). Many of the mineworkers, a majority (80%), were Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, who settled in Arizona in the early parts of the 20th century. This ethnic group fought long and hard for union representation as a way to solidify employee benefits and hold PDC accountable for unfair labor laws. In 1981, an economic recession affected the price of precious metals, including copper. In 1982, PDC faced three challenges: international competition, hard bargaining unions, and resistance to internal changes. PDC was forced to terminate 3,400 miners’

The book Out of This Furnace is a work of historical fiction written by Thomas Bell, in which the lives of four different individuals are told and woven together, and consequentially describe the changes taking place in different generations of immigrant workers in America. Beginning with Kracha, then leading to Mike, then Mary, and finally Dobie, this book does an excellent job of showing how the American immigrant's life changed mid 1800s to the 1920s. As seen in each generation, immigrants became as a whole more and more liberal in their beliefs and lifestyles. Many of their beliefs change, however, one of the most interesting is the development of the labor unions, and how they are viewed by the workers in that time period.

The Ludlow Massacre of 1914 is one of the bloodiest strike in the American labor history. Historians have debated whether the event was a massacre of innocent lives caused by the Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I) or as a battle between the company workers and the company militiamen. The CF&I stated that the event was an act of its workers to demilitarize the company and to prevent importation of “strikebreakers”. However, Thomas Andrews’ Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War introduces the concept of workscape in which gives an understanding of the event internally, above the surface and underground the mines of Colorado. Within the book, the operation of Colorado coal companies in capitalizing the coal industry lead to the formation of the mine workscape in which united coal miners underground the mines and above the surface to fight for industrial and political rights. This paper would define the concept of workscape in the definition given by Andrews, and provide evidence of the responsibility of the exploitation of capitalism in forming the mine workscape in the Colorado coal fields between the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Furthermore, the closer inspection of several events that occurred within and outside the grounds of the Colorado coal fields related to labor unrest with the knowledge of the concept of workscape will help understand the culmination of the Ludlow massacre within the larger history of capitalism. A careful investigation of the book and other