The strikes and the violence it brought about temporarily paralyzed the country's commerce and led governors in ten states to mobilize sixty thousand militia members to reopen rail traffic. The strike would be broken within a few weeks, but it also helped set the stage for later violence in the 1880's and 1890's, including the Haymarket Square bombing in Chicago in 1886, the Homestead Steel Strike near Pittsburgh in 1892, and the Pullman Strike in 1894 (1877: The Great Railroad Strike, 2006).
There have been many protests in American history against corporations, industrialists, bankers, Wall Street and the economic devastation their unregulated activities including the 19th-century labor movement that featured thousands of strikes and protests. The current protest that can be compared to that of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 is Occupy Wall Street (Mullen, 2011). It never amazes to see how history always repeats itself.
While police and troops made those late 19th century strikes as violent as Occupy Wall Street protests have been peaceful, the two sets of events are inextricably bound by the same dynamic. In 1877 and 1886, the hundreds of thousands of striking workers were revolting against the robber barons and capitalists who tightly controlled their lives while today's demonstrations are a reflection of the despair most feel about reforming let alone fighting back against the financial institutions that are a in effect shadow government responsible for the ongoing economic downturn. The precursor to the 1877 strikes was the financial panic of September 1773, which was fueled by out of control stock market speculation. By 1874, a million workers were without jobs and some cities had unemployment rates approaching twenty five percent in the greatest depression up to that point in American history. The response of the robber barons and corporate chiefs was to make workers work longer...
Labor unions are communities of workers who have come together with the purpose of fighting for their rights as a unit. These respective workers typically want fair conditions, to work with persons of integrity, and want to have a peaceful relationship with their employers, as the latter have to act in agreement with a set of requirements in order for this relationship to be possible. With the National Labor Relations
Labor and Union Studies in Washington and Oregon States The United States labor movement has its roots in the complex trappings of the industrial revolution. Laborers were just starting to come to the United States from foreign countries because they had learned that there were many jobs available for even the most unskilled worker. People were also moving from rural areas in America to the cities in an attempt ti have
In this sense the percentage of unionization in the workforce can be a more important factor than simply membership alone. The Ashenfelter and Johnson (1969) model spells out three crucial parties to the strike negotiations: firms, workers, and union representatives. It is assumed that the major considerations for union leaders are "(1) the survival and growth of the union as an institution, and (2) the personal political survival of the
Labor unions are associations of workers for the purpose of improving the economic status and working conditions of the employees through collective bargaining with employers (Union pp). The two general types of unions are the horizontal, or craft, union, which is composed of members who are skilled in a particular craft, such as the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, and the vertical, or industrial, union, which includes
From this perspective, right-to-work laws are passed in states in which public opinion is anti- union and the labor movement is politically ineffective; in such states, employees are less attracted to unions, and it is this public opinion climate, rather than the legislation itself, that harms union growth (Abraham & Voost 2000). The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation; Bureau of National Affairs (2002), reports that New Jersey does
Surveys have found that the public find business leaders to be more trustworthy than union leaders and many members of non-union families disapprove of unions. Other factors include the increased trend towards smaller sizes of new factories. Moreover, the American workforce has changed significantly in terms of composition, i.e. age, sex, education and race. Some cyclical phenomenon in the political, social and economic environment in the U.S. has also
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