Late 19th century America was a time of both industrial prosperity and poverty among workers. It was run by grasping corporations and proprietors. Workers found themselves alone, amidst the rest of the nation, merely individuals under the control of the lavish Rockefellers and Carnegies. Entire families found themselves working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week in unsanitary conditions just to have enough money to pay for simple necessities like food and rent. The issue of lowering working hours, increasing wages, and humanizing working conditions quickly became indispensable. While organized labor groups such as the National Labor Union, The Knights of Labor, and the American Federation of Labor all strived to resolve these issues, victories were seldom. The crusade towards organized labor from 1875-1900 was unsuccessful in improving the position of workers vastly because of the initial failure of strikes, the grueling feelings of superiority of employers over employees and the lack of support from the government.
Beginning in the 1860’s, labor unions began to sprout in hopes of making reforms by unifying workers to fight for higher wages, and 8 hour work day, and various other social benefits. The National Labor Union (1866) was the first assembly established to take part in this fight. Strikes would have to be effective in order to initiate any major changes but at a time like this, more harm was being done than good. In 1877, many workers participated in the first great American strike which resulted in mass violence and little reforms. Afterwards, an editorial in the New York Times stated that “the strike is apparently hopeless, and must be regarded as nothing more than a rash and spiteful demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless to understand their own interests…” (Document B)
The Essay on Nineteenth Century Labor Workers Strike
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the United States experienced rapid industrial growth. While the captains of industry accumulated huge amounts of wealth, the workers who toiled in their factories experienced no real rise of standard of living. Factory workers faced dangerous conditions, long work days, low pay and little or no control over the fate of their jobs. Children and women ...
This editorial, which clearly favored labor unions, was acknowledging that nothing would be achieved through fighting and violence. Their failures so early on should have given them the signal to cease and, but year after year, strikes were arising and little was being down in the workers favors. Their failures would surely set the stage for future unions to come. In 1892, workers at the Homestead Steel Plant near Pittsburgh walked out on strike and took the lives of at least two Pinkerton detectives and one civilian (Document G).
The violent acts at Homestead not only failed to gain rights but since non-strikers were killed it led people to think of laborers in a negative light. With the conditions only worsening after each and every strike, it was clear that organized strikes were not the way to improve conditions for workers.
The industrial era gave more power to employers than ever before. With the introduction of the Scientific Management method designed by Frederick Taylor, autonomy among workers was even less common. By means of Scientific Management, there was no longer a need for workers of one particular trade, now; workers would only know how to make one particular part of a whole. The fact that many employees had to band together to face one employer displayed a great deal of inferiority. In 1883, in a testimony before the Senate Committee on Labor and Capital, a machinist said that “100 men are able to do now what it took 300 or 400 men to do fifteen years ago” in trying to explain his insignificance to the company he worked for (Document D).
Thus, workers felt even more inferior because it took fewer workers to make products; fewer workers amounted to easier management by the employers. In addition to inferiority to the employers, workers would also put restrictions on themselves by giving in and signing things like the Western Union Telegraph Company’s employee contract that forbid them from joining unions (Document E).
These yellow-dog contracts simply dragged the workers further down into the ground. The ineffectiveness of unions was shown in that the unions that were formed weren’t strong enough to even overcome their own benefactors which in turn only put them at a lower level in the end. I. Another main contributor to the ineffectiveness of labor unions was the lack of support from the government. With the involvement of the federal government, labor unions could have been much more successful in churning out better conditions for workers.
The Term Paper on American Labor Workers Unions Work
... due to the slavery-like conditions facing the American worker. Works CitedAACTchrNET. Industrial Revolution Student: Unions are Born. {Online} Available ... violent labor conflicts and strikes. The first of these occurred with the Great Rail Strike of 1877. Rail workers all ... pursuit of happiness'. If the workers were controlled and overpowered by their employers, and treated inhumanely, then they ...
