The Role Of Violence During U.s. Labor

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 Labor Movement’s number one concern is to address problems associated with social inequality. The labor movement was created in order to fight for the rights of labor workers. The goal was to have better wages, safe working conditions, and reasonable working hours. Unions were formed in order to achieve this. However, this was always enough. Workers reached a point where they came together and participated in strikes which the main goal was to have their employers listen to them and come to an agreement.

Imagine your parents died at work when you were a young child, and your family was in poverty. This happened all of the time in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s because of the lack of rights for workers. It was the job of many early labor unions of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s make working conditions for workers better. Early labor unions such as the Knights of Columbus, the American Federation of Labor, and the National Labor Union were all successful in creating rights for workers and making working conditions better. There are many ways that labor unions have affected modern day society.

Labor unions have existed in one way or another since the birth of our country in 1776. They were created in an effort to protect the working population from abuses such as sweatshops and unsafe working conditions. From the start of our Nation there were a few unions organized unions in a scattered fashion, but many were disbanded after they had achieved their goals, such as when the printers and shoemakers briefly unionized in Philadelphia and New York City in 1778 to conduct the first recorded strike for higher wages. Three years later in 1971 the first successful strike happened, when Philadelphia carpenters campaigned for a ten-hour workday. This caused the need for skilled and unskilled laborers to skyrocket during the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War and also got the ball rolling with Labor unions. At this point in our Country, there had been nothing done yet for workers’ rights, conditions, pay, and so on. People at this time saw that they could come together and do something to make their lives better for themselves and their families. Many of these dates were important in shaping our country’s labor policies into what they are today. In 1847 New Hampshire enacts as the first state to enforce a 10-hour workday law. In 1909 the International Ladies’ Garment workers’ Union calls a strike in New York, demanding a 20-percent raise and a 52-hour workweek. Within two days, more than 20,000 workers from 500 factories walk off the job. This largely successful uprising

The labor movement in the United States began due to the need of the common interest of workers to protect themselves from their employers. Those who worked in the industrial sector, organized labor unions were formed to fight for better wages, reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for the employees. Understanding the history of the labor movement in the United States from the Industrial Revolution will allow for a better understanding of the purpose of the labor movement. Incorporating how the following theories: The Mainstream Economics School, The Human Resource Management School, The Industrial Relations School, and The Critical Industrial Relations School the labor issues in the early periods will allow future organizations to address issues in a more precise manner.

Labor unions have been instrumental in the lives of workers throughout American history, and have led to important advances in the American workforce. Throughout history there have been patterns of exploitation of immigrant workers by businesses in order to increase profits; the Mexican migrant workers of southern California are the most recent historical group to fall into this pattern of exploitation mostly from their lack of organization. Cesar E. Chavez was a great organizer and leader of the United Farm Workers labor union. Robert Kennedy referred to him as “one of the heroic figures of our time.”

Some of the more important events in labor union history included how unions were stereotyped as violent anarchist, and how they took a stance that invoked violent activity in three serious events; the Haymarket Riot, Homestead Incident and Pullman Strike and how these events in ways changed American labor union history.

In labor as in all things there is strength in numbers it is this strength that American labor unions provide. Labor unions provide a collective voice for those who had not previously been heard. As the professor in the “Frustrated Labor Historian” Dr. Horace P. Karastan is left with the dilemma what are the three most important events in American labor union history it would be difficult to choose with so many important moments. There are however several events that stand out as being turning points in giving employees unquestionable protections. The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 allowing employees the right to organize. Further the Wagner Act protecting employees from reprisal from employers for organizing spurring the growth of unionization. The Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 building on the Wagner Act as well as the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 which granted protections from the unions. It is these Acts that have changed the landscape of American labor union history and leave us with the unions that we have today.

It is seen that frequent disagreements between the workers and their employers usually results in strikes and protests. During World War II, it was no different, as there were many strikes and protests that took place during that time in war production factories. As the War started, the government needed more weapons, machineries, tanks and other military equipment’s in order to fight and win the war. In order to meet the increased demands of war, new war production factories had to be built, along with existing car manufacturing industries being transformed for war production as well. It was seen that during this time period war production changed the relationship between the Congress of Industrial organizations (CIO) and American Federation of Labor (AFL), with their employers and the national government. As organized labor

Initially, the intent of labor unions was for employed workers to meet together and collectively agree on fundamental workplace objectives and goals. The rise of the union came about after the Civil War, in the United States- responding to the industrial economy boom. Following the war, labor unions finally reached public popularity within the 1930-1950’s, and then again began to slowly decrease, through the 1960’s and on to today’s times. Although, the popularity of labor unions has decreased, its importance remains to be evident with politics, journalism, auto, and the public education industries.

During the Gilded Age, around 1860 to 1910, Unions, in an attempt to improve working conditions, were created, and while strikes from union workers “have been known in America since the Colonial Age… their numbers grew larger in the Gilded Age”: creating a numerous amount of issues that needed to be resolved (USHistory). One specific incidence that demonstrates the problems created was when workers of the Homestead Steelworks, that had unionized, were locked out in an attempt to break the union; however, these workers, recognizing the attempt to hire scabs, blocked the entrance to the steelworks (KhanAcademy). This, in turn, shut down production and angered management, thus a private police force was hired to arm themselves and to “push past

The main factor contributing to the failure of labor unions was choices the unions made in their actions. Two newspapers called The Alarm, and The Arbeiter-Zeitung both published articles in 1886. In the article The Arbeiter-Zeitung it says “To arms!” “To arms!”. (Schwab). This showed that the workers needed to stand up for what they wanted, even if it meant becoming truculent. This fortifies that the failure of the labor unions was coming from their ideas and tactics. Violence was never necessary; they could have went about it in a much different manner that was more placid. Next is a piece of evidence that was published in the New York Times on July 08, 1892. In the document it states that it was “names of those killed yesterday” (New York Times). It was a list that was

Just as one small spark can start a blazing wildfire, one simple bomb on the fateful day at Haymarket Square triggered an explosion in the labor movement that no one had expected. With tension growing exponentially in the workers’ rights area of United States reform in the 1800s, scattered riots inevitably broke out among restless workers, but no previous outbreak could compare to the impact of the notorious Haymarket Riot. The explosion in the crowd of workers battling police officers on that spring day in Chicago mirrored the explosion that occurred for laborers across the nation, with a combination of both beneficial and harmful outcomes to last the rest of history.

While organized labor’s storied history demonstrates remarkable achievements, there has been a downside for the American economy. By way of example, the formerly dominant U.S. steel industry serves to remind of an time when poor management, global competition, and union excess were necessary causes of a dramatic and rapid industry decline.

This brief history of more than 100 years of the modern trade union movement in the United States can only touch the high spots of activity and identify the principal trends of a "century of achievement." In such a condensation of history, episodes of importance and of great human drama must necessarily be discussed far too briefly, or in some cases relegated to a mere mention.