Key questions
-What are labor unions and what is their purpose?
They are organizations that people join. They were origionally formed to protect workers from being underpaid and overworked. Now a days they are used more to make sure everything is being done in the correct and same way.
Were labor unions successful in achieving their goals? Explain/Give examples.
Here are some of my notes:
Craft unions are organized by the certain skill/ job that each person does.
Industial unions are where people of the same industry that do different things organize together for a purpose.
AFL (American Federation of Labor) led by samuel gompers went on strike and got saleries raised from an average of $17.50 a week to $24 and hours shortend from approxiamately 54.5 hours a week to 49.
Failed strikes but added to momentum of union organizations:
American Railway Union (ARU) formed by Eugene V. Debs. won a strike for a higher wages, but failed at other attempts to strike so the organization sort of died off.
Industrial Workers of the World, or the Wobblies, Headed by William “Big Bill” Haywood, included miners, lumberers, and cannery and dock workers. Won one strike just like the ARU, but added to the momentum of union organizations.
A union of 1,000 Japanese and Mexican workers formed the Sugar Beet and Farm Laborers’ Union of Oxnard. Also another union of Japanese and Mexican miners went on strike to be treated as well and get a high wages as the other white caucasion miners.
The great strike of 1877- Workers for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroads stopped railroad action for approximately a week. President Rutherford B. Hayes had to get involved and federal troops ended it.
On May 4th, 1886, 3,000 people protested police brutality and got a little roudy and a bomb was thrown and killed 7 police officers and several other workers. Four leaders from the riot were hung.Womens/ Kids Rights Act- Mary Harris Jones a leader towards both, led 80 injured working kids straight to President Theodore Roosevelt's house that started the kids rights movementA fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York and due to bad management 146 women died. The company had no sprinkler system and all but one exit was locked and that was blocked by fire.Managers began being more strict with things and didn't allow union meetings, fired union members, and forced new employees to sign contracts swearing that they would not join any unions
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