FREE ESSAY ON EARLY STRIKES OF THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT

EARLY STRIKES OF THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT

EARLY STRIKES OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT
In the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century, industry in America was
growing at an alarming rate. This growth brought about basic changes in the way things
were produced and in the lives of those who produced them. It was the Civil War that
first started to change industrial landscape of the nation. "More than a million dollars
a day were spent on weapons, ammunition, machinery, clothing, boots, shoes, [and] canned
goods" (Meltzer, 3). The high demand for so many different items brought bigger, newer
and more efficient factories. The factories were producing cheaper products than the
small, independent, hand-made specialists were. As a result of this industrialization a
shoemaker, for example, no longer made the whole shoe. Instead the "new" shoemaker only
made the heel, or shoelace. "Mass production left no place for the individual craftsman"
(Meltzer, 4). 
The new assembly line organization had several side effects. One was condition for the
workers. Factories often provided inadequate housing which lead to bad living conditions.
The working conditions were usually dirty, uncomfortable, and unsafe. 
By 1900 nearly one out of every five in the labor force was a woman. Conditions for women
and children were often much worse. "They [women] were used to hard work. In the home
they put in 12 hours a day or more, cleaning, cooking, sewing, rearing children, and
helping with the men's chores as well," (Foner, Women 8). Industry owners sent people to
rural parts of the country to recruit women. They promised the women high wages, leisure
hours, and silk dresses. Instead, the women worked 14 to 16 hours a day for an average
wage of $1.56 a week. They received no silk dresses. "Some of the hands never touch their
money from month's end to month's end. Once in two weeks is payday. A woman had then
worked 122 hours. The corporation furnishes her house. There is rent to be paid; there
are also the corporation stores from which she has been getting her food, coal… and
[other] cheap stuff on sale may tempt her to purchase..." (Meltzer, 21). Factory
employers also cheated women, believing they were defenseless. Some employers did not pay
them at all, or deducted a large part of their pay for "imperfect" work. An 1870 survey
showed that 7,000 of the working women could only afford to live in cellars and 20,000
were near starvation. 
For children in the nineteenth century, idleness was considered a sin. And the factory
was a God sent protector against the evils into which idleness might lead children. In
the 1830's in Massachusetts, children in the factory worked 12 to 13 hours a day. In
1845, the mills in Lowell set hours for children from sunup to sunset. In New England two
fifths of all workers were children. The Census of 1870 reported 700,000 children ages
ten to fifteen at work. By 1910, nearly 2 million children ages ten to fifteen were at
work. In addition to the extremely high hours, the conditions children were forced to
work in were atrocious. The factories were often dirty, unsanitary, cramped, dark, and
unsafe.
As difference in wealth between workers and owners increased, there was a greater need
for the worker to be able to improve their circumstances. There were several key strikes
through which the workers fought to improve conditions. In this paper I will investigate
the issues, events, and outcomes surrounding three important strikes.
The Homestead Strike: 1891, Steel Industry, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Conditions in the steel mills were difficult, dangerous and wages were low. "Everywhere
in the enormous sheds were pits gaping like the mouth of hell, and ovens emitting a
terrible degree of heat, with grimy men filling and lining them. One man jumps down,
works desperately for a few minutes, and is then pulled up exhausted. Another immediately
takes his place; there is no hesitation," (Meltzer, 137). The accident rate in the steel
mills of Pittsburgh was very high. In 1891 there was a total of 300 deaths and over 2,000
injuries. People died or were injured from explosions, burnings, asphyxiation, electric
shocks, falls, crushing, etc.
In 1889 the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers organized to seek higher
wages and better conditions for steel workers. In that same year the Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers achieved a three-year contract from Andrew
Carnegie, the steel owner. Nearing the end of the contract, the union began negotiations
to renew it.
In response to the workers union, Andrew Carnegie formed an association of manufacturers.
Henry Clay Frick was a famous union buster, and had just finished dissolving a union in
the coke fields when Carnegie gave him the position of being in charge at Homestead.
Negotiations began in 1892. Steel prices had greatly increased and the union asked for a
raise. Frick responded by cutting wages. Negotiations continued and Frick started
building high fences around the mill, cutting gun slits in it, and topping it with barbed
wire. Soon after the men learned of his plan to smash the union, they were left with a
proposition: settle on his terms in one month, or the company would stop dealing with the
union. Angered by his inflexibility, the workers held a mock public hanging of Frick.
Using this as an excuse, he shut down the mill, and locked the workers out two days
before the end of the contract. Frick quickly hired as many scabs as he could and brought
in 300 Pinkerton guards to get them through the picket line and protect the plant. 
What was to happen in the next thirteen hours is considered one of the bloodiest battles
in American Labor history. It started very early in the morning when some of the workers
sighted two barges of Pinkertons a mile below Homestead. Ten thousand men, women, and
children rushed to the riverbank. When the Pinkertons disembarked from the boats, they
saw hordes of men holding carbines, rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers, clubs, and
stones.
The firing started when one of the ships began to lower their gangplank. When the plank
reached shore, a striker lay down upon it to keep people from getting off. When a
Pinkerton tried to kick him out of the way, the striker shot him in the thigh. Almost
immediately both side began firing at each other. The Pinkertons shot from the plank and
top of the barge instantly shooting down thirty Homestead strikers.
It is estimated that 20 Pinkertons and 40 strikers were shot. Finally, the Pinkertons
surrendered, and march upon the shore, unarmed just to be severely beaten by the enraged
wives of several of the workers. 
Instead, a few days later, 8,000 members of the Pennsylvania National Guard took over the
town. According to the commanding general, their aim was to restore law and order.
They stayed for three months while the company continued to bring in more and more scabs.
There were nearly 2,000 operating the steel mill. Though locked out, and holding firm for
almost five months, the strikers gave in. The troops, scabs, costly court action,
evictions from company houses, press attacks, and hunger forced the men to give in. The
unskilled workers, whose jobs were easily replaced, voted to return back to work. And a
few days later, the union joined them.
Frick's response was simple, "This outbreak settles one matter forever, and that is that
the Homestead mill hereafter will never again recognize the Amalgamated Association nor
any other labor organization," (Meltzer, 142). After the strike, life got even harder for
the union. Frick stayed so he could watch the members of the union ask for their old jobs
back. Almost all of them were denied. The once indispensable skilled workers saw their
places taken by new men, who were quickly trained. The mechanization of the mills also
reduced the value of skilled labor.
These union members had trouble finding jobs anywhere. The industry-wide blacklist kept
the union men out of every steel mill. Within two years, the Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers lost half of its national membership. By 1910, the Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers had only one contract with a small company.
The 1892 defeat of Homestead meant a twelve-hour day, seven days a week for almost all
the workers. Pinkerton spies were installed everywhere. Wages were slashed more than
anyone had ever expected them to be, and grievance committees were done away with.
Workers meetings were also banned. And working and living conditions sank lower than they
had ever been before. "As for Mr. Carnegie, he wired a friend in 1899, 'Ashamed to tell
you profits these days. Prodigious!' In 1900 the company's net worth was $40 million,"
(Meltzer, 146).
The Pullman Strike: 1894, Railroad Industry, Chicago, Illinois 
The Pullman Strike had many causes. Pullman workers lived in a company town described as,
"bordered with bright beds of flowers, and green velvety stretches of lawn, shaded with
trees, and dotted with parks and pretty water vistas," (Meltzer 148). This, however, was
not a complete truth. Though was a section of the town that included this. The houses in
it were designated only for the Pullman officials. There were ten large tenements
designated for the workers. They were each three stories tall containing flats of two to
four. Each building accommodated twelve to forty-eight families. Bathrooms were shared
between two or more families, and there were water faucets for each group of five
families.
The Pullman Corporation appointed all the town officials. The Pullman Journal backed all
corporation policies. The company reserved the right to deny labor organizers and radical
speakers rental or use of public halls. And, a spy system sought out any sign or word
critical of the authorities. The Pullman Corporation tried and succeeded in dominating
every aspect of its workers' lives. The company owned land, plants, houses, tenements,
hotel, stores, bank, school, library, church, water and gas systems. "As employer, George
Pullman determined wages, as landlord he fixed rents, as banker he collected savings,"
(Meltzer 150).
George Pullman knew how to make a profit. He made his business highly profitable, and was
running his town the same way. The town obtained its water from Chicago for four cents,
but Pullman charged his workers ten. As for the gas he paid 33 cents for, he charged his
workers $2.55. One worker said, "We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman
shop, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman church, and when we die we
shall be buried in the Pullman cemetery and go to Pullman hell," (Meltzer 151). Pullman
managed to keep business good, even in the depression of 1893. In that year, he managed
to earn a surplus of $4 million. He managed that by cutting wages 25 to 40 per cent while
keeping rents and prices the same. 
In the first winter of the depression, every single Pullman worker was in debt. They felt
they had taken all they could. The new American Railway Union, recently organized by
Eugene V. Debs, was encouraging the workers to join them. The fact that Pullman ran a
small railroad made the eligible. They managed to have secret meeting in adjacent town to
avoid company spies. A year and a half after the start of the depression a committee was
organized and sent to the company to ask that their wages be restored. The company
claimed that they had lost a lot of money and were only keeping the plant going to give
the men work. The men reluctantly returned to work assured by the company that that no
member of the committee would be fired. The next day, three members of the committee were
laid off.
Turning to Debs for help, the of the American Railway Union in the company declared a
strike. Pullman shut down the whole plant. His plan was to wait until the workers and
their families starved, driving them back to work. In a few short weeks the workers'
families were starving. Debs tried repeatedly to settle the dispute. The company remained
was not interested. The American Railway Union decided to boycott Pullman cars, refusing
to handle them anywhere. 
On the first day of the boycott, switchmen detached all Pullman cars from the trains.
They were all fired immediately. That act provoked other members of the American Railway
Union to walk off the job in protest. The boycott evolved into a strike. By the second
day 40,000 people refused to work. By the forth, 125,000. "Soon, nearly every train in
the country was dead on its tracks," (Meltzer 155). It was already deemed the most
effective strike on this scale the country had ever seen. The union had grown in
importance so that a strike against one company, the Pullman Company for example,
escalated into an industry-wide strike.
The General Managers Association, a semi-secret organization representing twenty-four of
the nation's biggest railroads, came to Pullman's aid. Though the Association knew the
strike was aimed at Pullman, they saw in the strike, a chance to destroy a new industrial
union movement before it could dramatically influence American labor.
From his years of experience with strikes, Debs knew that if the union were to win, they
would need to keep it peaceful. He sent out numerous telegrams advising members of the
union to stop no train by force. They would only refuse to handle Pullman cars.
The Association was moving fast to end this one. Due to the depression and joblessness,
the search for scabs was easy. The Association wanted to get federal troops involved
making the problem was a labor-government problem instead of a labor-management problem.
For help they turned to Attorney General Richard Olney, who was a former railroad lawyer
and a member of the board of several lines. 
In order to use federal troops, President Cleveland needed to be enforcing a federal
court order. To help him to get the court order, Richard Olney called on Edwin Walker.
Walker claimed that the strike was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. He said
the union was meddling with the mail, interstate commerce, or the operation of
twenty-three railroads now involved in the strike. 
When the injunction was read by the court marshal in front of a crowd of unionists, they
went wild. They started hooting and rough-housing his deputies. Walker immediately wired
Washington for troops. Federal troops were dispatched immediately by President
Cleveland's order on July 4th. The wild gang crowded into open streets and railway yards
and fighting broke out. There were 14,000 armed men, and the militia was shooting into
crowds killing about 20 people trying to keep them from moving the trains. By that night
the city was fiery with burning freight cars lighting up the night sky.
The union claimed that the riot was not cause by strikers, but with the presence of so
many soldiers, the strikers soon became discouraged. Their boycott was near defeat.
Knowing that by obeying the injunction would mean losing the strike, Debs wouldn't and
was indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy. The workers felt they couldn't give up the
strike. Striking was the only way for them to defend their interests as long as Pullman
wouldn't settle. The press blew the situation out of proportion getting 700 union leaders
arrested. And Debs himself was thrown in jail for six months for violating the
injunction. The strike was now broken, and the American Railway Union was no more.
The use of the injunction against the workers in the Pullman strike became a powerful
weapon against labor unions. The ruling of the Supreme Court meant that management no
longer had to rely on violence to break a strike. All they had to do was claim that the
striking, picketing, or boycotting was hurting profits. Ever since the Pullman strike, as
soon as an industry-wide strike was called, it was followed by, in most cases, a state or
federal court order. "One judge prohibited a craft federation from promoting or endorsing
a strike 'in any manner by letters, printed or other circulars, telegrams or telephones,
word of mouth, oral persuasion, or suggestion, or through interviews to be published in
the newspapers," (Meltzer 158). This took away a worker's first amendment right to free
speech. This strike made clear that the forces of the government could be used by the
side of the management. 
Lawrence Textile Strike: 1912, Lawrence, Massachusetts, Textile Industry
"Upon that day [first day of the strike], in the Washington mill of the so-called Woolen
Trust, a handful of Italian operatives had gone to draw their pay envelopes. Of all the
mingled peoples of Lawrence, none are so humble as the Italians, none so eager for work
at any price, and none so ill paid. They are the last and poorest of the successive wave
of people from Europe which have been surging upon our shores during the last thirty
years. When these people opened their envelopes, they found that there was a reduction of
pay corresponding to two hours of work in a week - the price perhaps of three or four
loaves of bread," (Lens 102). After receiving their pay, the enraged men went parading
down the halls getting hundreds to join them. They broke a few windows in the factory and
paraded down the main streets of the town, beginning the strike.
The cause of this strike was wage cuts. The state had just passed a law reducing the
hours of women and children from 56 a week to 54. The employers decided to cut wages
proportionately. The difference to the factory owners was negligible, but the workers
were already at the starving point. Their motto was, "Better to starve fighting, than to
starve working." One thing that was very unique to the Lawrence Textile strike was all of
the different people involved. There were at least 30 different nationalities speaking 45
different languages. Only eight per cent of the mill was native-born.
Each textile mill was trying to dominate the industry. They had first made the weavers
attend to two looms instead of one. Then they gradually increased the speed of the
machines. But most importantly, each man was being forced to work harder and do more per
day. For the workers, it became and exhausting battle. Wages did advance slowly over the
years, but not as much as the cost of living. 
The Lawrence Textile workers had never been organized. They had a few skilled workers in
the American Federation of Labor, but not enough to strike. A different union came in to
help them. It was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW had been trying to
organize Lawrence for almost ten years. 
As the strike continued, the workers' families started to go hungry. Supporters of the
strike donated some food, but it was not enough for everyone to eat. In order to feed the
children, the workers sent them to live with families in New York and Philadelphia. As
one group of children was leaving Lawrence, the police arrested and beat them and their
mothers. The nation was outraged. A congressional investigation was begun.
Fearing all of the negative publicity, the mill owners settled the strike and met all the
union demands. Soon every mill in New England raised wages from five to twenty per cent.
The efforts of labor unions to get better wages and working conditions has been bloody.
Fearing the unions' power, management in several industries has used many devices to
defeat strikers. They have locked workers out, hired scabs and security guards, and
relied on the government to provide troops.
Despite many defeats, unions continued to organize. As they saw the success of the strike
in Lawrence, their power crossed many ethnic lines, and involved workers of many
different backgrounds.
Bibliography:
Milton Meltzer, Bread and Roses, Vintage Sundial, New York, 1967
Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, International
Publishers, New York, 1947
Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement, Free Press, New York, 1980
Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Kids On Strike, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1999
Linda Jacobs Altman, The Pullman Strike of 1894, The Millbrook Press, Brookfield,
Connecticut, 1994
Sidney Lens, Strikemakers & Strikebreakers, Lodestar Books, New York, 1985
David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1987
Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter,
Walker & Company, New York, 1989
William Z. Foster, American Trade Unionism, International Publishers, New York, 1970
John J. Flagler, The Labor Movement in the United States, Lerner Publications Company,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1990
Rosemary Laughlin, The Pullman Strike of 1894: American Labor Comes of Age, Morgan
Reynolds Incorporated, Greensboro, 2000
Bibliography:
Milton Meltzer, Bread and Roses, Vintage Sundial, New York, 1967
Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, International
Publishers, New York, 1947
Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement, Free Press, New York, 1980
Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Kids On Strike, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1999
Linda Jacobs Altman, The Pullman Strike of 1894, The Millbrook Press, Brookfield,
Connecticut, 1994
Sidney Lens, Strikemakers & Strikebreakers, Lodestar Books, New York, 1985
David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1987
Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter,
Walker & Company, New York, 1989
William Z. Foster, American Trade Unionism, International Publishers, New York, 1970
John J. Flagler, The Labor Movement in the United States, Lerner Publications Company,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1990
Rosemary Laughlin, The Pullman Strike of 1894: American Labor Comes of Age, Morgan
Reynolds Incorporated, Greensboro, 2000