Hi skafisti!!
I found several sources for you; I expect that they will be useful for
your purposes.
"THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR:
The life of a 19th-century American industrial worker was far from
easy. Even in good times wages were low, hours long and working
conditions hazardous. Little of the wealth which the growth of the
nation had generated went to its workers. The situation was worse for
women and children, who made up a high percentage of the work force in
some industries and often received but a fraction of the wages a man
could earn. Periodic economic crises swept the nation, further eroding
industrial wages and producing high levels of unemployment.
At the same time, the technological improvements, which added so much
to the nation's productivity, continually reduced the demand for
skilled labor. Yet the unskilled labor pool was constantly growing, as
unprecedented numbers of immigrants -- 18 million between 1880 and
1910 -- entered the country, eager for work.
Before 1874, when Massachusetts passed the nation's first legislation
limiting the number of hours women and child factory workers could
perform to 10 hours a day, virtually no labor legislation existed in
the country. Indeed, it was not until the 1930s that the federal
government would become actively involved. Until then, the field was
left to the state and local authorities, few of whom were as
responsive to the workers as they were to wealthy industrialists.
The laissez-faire capitalism, which dominated the second half of the
19th century and fostered huge concentrations of wealth and power, was
backed by a judiciary which time and again ruled against those who
challenged the system. In this, they were merely following the
prevailing philosophy of the times. As John D. Rockefeller is reported
to have said: "the growth of a large business is merely a survival of
the fittest." This "Social Darwinism," as it was known, had many
proponents who argued that any attempt to regulate business was
tantamount to impeding the natural evolution of the species.
Yet the costs of this indifference to the victims of capital were
high. For millions, living and working conditions were poor, and the
hope of escaping from a lifetime of poverty slight. As late as the
year 1900, the United States had the highest job-related fatality rate
of any industrialized nation in the world. Most industrial workers
still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet
earned from 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum deemed necessary
for a decent life. The situation was only worse for children, whose
numbers in the work force doubled between 1870 and 1900.
The first major effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide
basis appeared with The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869.
Originally a secret, ritualistic society organized by Philadelphia
garment workers, it was open to all workers, including blacks, women
and farmers. The Knights grew slowly until they succeeded in facing
down the great railroad baron, Jay Gould, in an 1885 strike. Within a
year they added 500,000 workers to their rolls.
The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline, however, and their place
in the labor movement was gradually taken by the American Federation
of Labor (AFL). Rather than open its membership to all, the AFL, under
former cigar union official Samuel Gompers, focused on skilled
workers. His objectives were "pure and simple" and apolitical:
increasing wages, reducing hours and improving working conditions. As
such, Gompers helped turn the labor movement away from the socialist
views earlier labor leaders had espoused.
Still, labor's goals -- and the unwillingness of capital to grant them
-- resulted in the most violent labor conflicts in the nation's
history. The first of these occurred with the Great Rail Strike of
1877, when rail workers across the nation went out on strike in
response to a 10-percent pay cut. Attempts to break the strike led to
rioting and wide-scale destruction in several cities: Baltimore,
Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New
York; and San Francisco, California. Federal troops had to be sent in
at several locations before the strike was ended.
The Haymarket Square incident took place nine years later, when
someone threw a bomb into a meeting called to discuss an ongoing
strike at the McCormick Harvester Company in Chicago. In the ensuing
melee, nine people were killed and some 60 injured.
Next came the riots of 1892 at Carnegie's steel works in Homestead,
Pennsylvania. A group of 300 Pinkerton detectives the company had
hired to break a bitter strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel and Tin Workers were fired upon and 10 were killed. The National
Guard was called in as a result, non-union workers hired and the
strike broken. Unions were not let back into the plant until 1937.
Two years later, wage cuts at the Pullman Palace Car Company just
outside Chicago, led to a strike, which, with the support of the
American Railway Union, soon tied up much of the country's rail
system. As the situation deteriorated, U.S. Attorney General Richard
Olney, himself a former railroad lawyer, deputized over 3,000 men in
an attempt to keep the rails open. This was followed by a federal
court injunction against union interference with the trains. When
rioting ensued, President Cleveland sent in federal troops, and the
strike was eventually broken.
The most militant of the strike-prone unions was the International
Workers of the World (IWW). Formed from an amalgam of unions fighting
for better conditions in the West's mining industry, the IWW, or
"Wobblies" as they were commonly known, gained particular prominence
from the Colorado mine clashes of 1903 and the singularly brutal
fashion in which they were put down. Openly calling for class warfare,
the Wobblies gained many adherents after they won a difficult strike
battle in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912. Their
call for work stoppages in the midst of World War I, however, led to a
government crackdown in 1917, which virtually destroyed them."
From "THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR" at "AN OUTLINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY" an
history page of the Information-USA a website maintained by the Office
of International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State.
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/history/toc.htm
A good source of articles is the IWW.ORG the official website of the
Industrial Workers of the World:
http://iww.org/
At the CULTURE page of this website "you will find the most
comprehensive (and ever expanding) collection of current and
historical articles by and about the Industrial Workers of the World,
including answers to frequently asked questions, all of our official
literature, a bibliography of books for further study, critical
studies of the IWW, and biographies of many past members of the IWW.":
http://iww.org/culture/
From the "Other IWW Articles" section I suggest you the following articles:
"What is the IWW and What Does it Want?"
By Justus Ebert - from the One Big Union Monthly, March 1, 1919
http://iww.org/culture/articles/ebert1.shtml
"Helen Keller - Why I became an IWW?"
An Interview, written by Barbara Bindley, New York Tribune, January 15, 1916
http://iww.org/culture/articles/hkeller1.shtml
"Politics vs. Syndicalism: a Case Study of the IWW"
by Luther M. Gaylord
http://iww.org/culture/articles/Gaylord1.shtml
See also the Articles index page for more articles:
http://iww.org/culture/articles/
Additional sources:
"Industrial Workers of the World"
By Joyce L. Kornbluh, from "The Lucy Parsons Project" site:
http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/iww/kornbluh_iww.html
See also the comment and the "More information about the IWW:" section
(at the bottom of the page "The IWW" of this site:
http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/iww.html
Search strategy:
iww "class conflict"
struggles labor america
I hope this helps you. Remember that this answer is not considered
ended until you feel satisfy with it, so if need further assistance or
find this answer unclear or incomplete please use the request of
answer clarification feature, I will be glad to respond your requests.
Best regards.
livioflores-ga |
