GA - Unions Lesson

Unions

American Federation of Labor and Samuel Gompers

Unskilled laborers were subject to low wages, long workdays, no vacations, and unsafe workplaces. Because individual workers had little power to change the way an employer ran a business, workers banded together in labor unions to demand better pay and working conditions. Then the labor unions banded together for even more power to change the ways employers ran their businesses. The American Federation of Labor, or AFL, was led by Samuel Gompers. He was president of the AFL from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 to his death in 1924. His goal was to use strikes (work stoppages) to convince employers to give workers shorter work days, better working conditions, higher wages, and greater control over how they carried out their workplace responsibilities.

Pullman Strike

During poor economic times in the 1870s and 1890s, violence erupted when employers sought to fire some workers and lower the wages of those still employed. In 1894, when the Pullman railcar factory near Chicago fired almost half its workforce and cut wages by 25% to 50%, its workers went on strike. Other railway workers refused to switch Pullman cars on or off trains. Rail traffic west of Chicago came to a halt.

The Pullman Company responded by hiring new workers, but they were attacked by strikers when they attempted to go to work. Leaders of the railroad industry convinced the government to declare the situation illegal. President Grover Cleveland sent the U.S. Army to restore peace. Big business and the U.S. government both feared labor unions were a menace to America's capitalist economy.

 

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