trade unions Flashcards
what rights should workers have?
Equal pay, for equal work
• Safe working environment
• Maximum working hours in a day/week
• Minimum wage
• Reasonable workload USA?
• Maternity/paternity leave/pay
• Not to be discriminated against
impact of industrialisation on worker?
1880s nearly 1/3 of workers in railroad and steel were common labourers
Contract system used to hire unskilled labourers- ie employers could lay off workers in periods of slack (e construction, textiles)
Unskilled workers moved from city to city looking for work, earned 1/3 of wages by skilled workers
Both skilled and unskilled worked 12 hour shifts, often in hazardous conditions
Children as young as 8 worked in coal mines and cotton mills- vulnerable to accidents
g
examples of militant strike action?
Haymarket Affair
Violence broke out between workers and Unions weakened and treated
police - 4 strikers killed. Protest march with suspicion. KOL destroyed.
followed and a bomb was thrown leading Further embedded workforce
1 8 9 2
Homestead Strike
to 7police deaths and subsequent 4 more workers as police retaliated. Blamed on German anarchists, 8 arrested and 5 executed.
143day strike at Homestead Steelworks ended with violence with Pinkerton
Detectives and attack on Henry Frick. Collapse of Strike
President Cleveland sent 2000 federal troops to suppress strikers. They opened fire, killing .4
divides as immigrant were excluded by white American
why was progress stunted?
Haymarket Affair
Violence broke out between workers and Unions weakened and treated
police - 4 strikers killed. Protest march with suspicion. KOL destroyed.
followed and a bomb was thrown leading Further embedded workforce
1 8 9 2
Homestead Strike
to 7police deaths and subsequent 4 more workers as police retaliated. Blamed on German anarchists, 8 arrested and 5 executed.
143day strike at Homestead Steelworks ended with violence with Pinkerton
Detectives and attack on Henry Frick. Collapse of Strike
President Cleveland sent 2000 federal troops to suppress strikers. They opened fire, killing .4
divides as immigrant were excluded by white American
strengths in the gilded age?
AA still free to leave the south and were doing so in increasing numbers.
• Tuskegee machine had improved economic opportunities for AA
• Literacy main improvement in this period. 1865 only one in 20 AA could read. By 1895 this had risen to one in two.
how was the gilded age show lack of progress?
Segregation in transport, every southern state following suit.
• Compromise of 1877.
• Some AA favoured segregation, such as Booker
T. Washington. He thought AA should take advantage of the economic opportunity, and then privileges would follow.
• Segregation in north as well.
• Exclusion by registration laws, which restricted
strengths in ww1?
WW1 saw some improvement in the position of trade unions.
The needs of war and the opportunities it offered to industrialists to increase their profits encouraged a more conciliatory policy towards unions.
Between 1914 and 1918 factory production increased by 35%. Whilst prices rose, real wages increased by 20% so workers were generally content.
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) → Government passed this to maintain production during the war, which limited the use of injuctions and
negatives of ww1?
there were gains during the war. Government needed to ensure production was high. Argument though that these were temporary gains and after
how did the great depression affect worker rights?
Incidents of strikes and sit-ins by desperate workers increased
• Employers called on the police or in some cases their own strike-breakers
• As a result by 1933 only 10% of the workforce was unionised because although they had to the right to join unions, they had no right to strike and employers could sack workers if they went on
how did the new deal affect worker rights?
Herbert Hoover lost all confidence from the public, so FDR was voted in in 1932- a Democrat (since 1865 there had been 14 Presidents, only 4 others were Democrat)
• Given unprecedented powers by Congress to form a 100 day programme of reform to solve the economic crisis and get people back to work
• Settling industrial unrest was an extra challenge to tackle once he had done this- not the original aim!
• This programme was known as the New Deal
• The New Deal can be split into 6 areas of
reforms
– Reformingthebankingandfinancialsystem, solving unemployment, reforming businesses, helping farmers, regional development, ethnic/racial/gender divisions
• You have been given information on the impact of th
what’s the wagner act?
Established National Labor Relations Board, which could negotiate on behalf of workers and prevent companies from using their own unions.
Elect their own representatives to take part in collective bargaining → first piece of legislation that recognised this.
Declared constitutional.
Recognised role of unions.
Therefore workers increased their power. Some fir
what is the national war labour board?
response to the unions willingness to forgo their right to strike during the war years
What is it?
– Created to mediate wage disputes
– A formula was adopted to deal with these disputes t
