Labor+Unions

=LABOR UNIONS= Driven by wage cuts and poor working conditions, violent outbreaks of strikes and a long series of battles occurred all over the country during the 1870s. In 1877, around the coal mining region of Mauch Chunk and Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a secret miners' association called the [|Molly Maguires], mostly comprising Irish Catholics, burned buildings, controlled county officials, and murdered bosses and supervisors who offended them. Finally, the murderers were apprehended and brought to trial. The hanging of 10 of those men in 1877, effectively broke up the “Mollies.” Also in 1877, unorganized railroad workers struck because of a 10 percent wage cut, the second cut since the Panic of 1873. They brought to a screeching halt four Eastern rail trunk lines, which caused turmoil in every industrial center. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois; the [|Great Strike of 1877]sparked battles between militia and the crowds. Only after federal soldiers were brought in, was ordered restored. By 1886, membership in the Knights of Labor had swollen to 700,000 workers and stood as a champion for the unskilled laborer. Unlike other labor unions, the Knights of Labor encouraged [|blacks]to join, so that by 1886, approximately 60,000 blacks had become members. Blacks had been deemed unfit for manufacturing work, according to a “study” published by the //Manufacturers Record of Baltimore//in 1893. Such conclusions made it difficult for blacks to enter the industrial labor market. The Knights of Labor participated in the famous Haymarket Square riot of 1886 in Chicago, along with trade unions, socialist unions, and “anarchists,” where workers fought for the eight-hour day, and where a bomb and subsequent shooting resulted in the deaths of eight policemen and injuries to 67 others. Eight anarchists were jailed, tried, and convicted of murder, of which four were hanged. Then, due to mismanagement of operations, membership within that organization began to decline. The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) (now simply AFL) began that same year. The AFL was spearheaded by Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker by trade, who had learned of the economic struggles of the American laborer through conversations with cigar makers at the factory. Gompers led AFL member unions and individual workers into struggles for shorter hours and higher wages. At first, blacks were openly encouraged to join the AFL, until it was later seen that their explicit stand on race issues hampered the union's expansion. Thereafter, as long as a union did not include anything in their constitution regarding the exclusion members because of race, those unions were welcome to join the AFL. It was not until the Massachusetts' Ten-Hour Act (1874) went into effect that woman and child labor limits in factories were adequately enforced. But a New York act of 1883, which prohibited the manufacture of cigars in sweatshops, was overturned by the state's highest court, even though it had been sponsored by Theodore Roosevelt and signed by Governor Grover Cleveland. The court declared that government should not force workers to leave their homes to go to work and and also should not interfere with the profitable use of real estate, without any compensation for the public good. An Illinois court struck down a statute limiting the number of hours worked by women in sweatshops as unconstitutional, stating that women were “sufficiently intelligent to make their own labor contracts in their own interest.” During that time, the principles of laissez-faire still greatly affected the government's ability to intercede in labor disputes. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," was used as a blanket injunction against labor to break the current strike and others in the future. The [|Pullman] Strike (1894) against the Great Northern Railway of Chicago, led by Eugene V. Debs, then president of the American Railway Union, was staged because of cuts in wages and continued high rents in company-owned housing. At the suggestion of [|Attorney General] Richard Olney, President Cleveland ordered 2,500 federal troops to the strike zone and broke the strike within a week. [|www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1678.html] Early unions The first local [|trade unions] of men in the [|United States] formed in the late 18th century, and women began organizing in the 1820s.[|[][|2][|]] However, the movement came into its own after the [|Civil War], when the short-lived [|National Labor Union] (NLU) became the first federation of American unions. Women working under sweat shop conditions organized the first union in the early 19th century. According to the book //American Labor//, in 1834–1836 women worked 16–17 hours a day to earn $1.25 to $2.00 a week. A girl weaver in a non-union mill would receive $4.20 a week versus $12.00 for the same work in a union mill. The workers had to buy their own needles and thread from the proprietor. They were fined for being a few minutes late for work. Women carried their own foot treadle machines or were held in the shops until the entire shop had completed an immediate delivery order. Their pay was often shorted, but a protest might result in immediate dismissal. Sometimes whole families worked from sun up to midnight. Pulmonary ailments were common due to dust accumulation on the floors and tables. Some shops had leaks or openings in the roofs, and workers worked in inclement weather. Despite the odds, some women challenged the employers. Their first organization was as an auxiliary, the Daughters of Liberty in 1765. In 1825, the women organized and called themselves the United Tailoresses of New York. Strikes occurred over the years, and some were successful. []
 * Violence during the 1870s and '80s**