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Granger Laws
(Late 1860s-Early 1870s) A series of laws passed in Western States (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois) of the United States after the American Civil War to regulate grain elevator and railroad freight rates and rebates and to address long and short haul discrimination, as well as storage, and other railroad abuses against farmers. These laws were passed, but eventually reversed. All a part of Greenback labor party platform and was an organization of farmers. -
1866 National Labor Union
It formed in 1866 that attracted 600,000 members including the skilled, unskilled, and farmers. It pushed social reform, banking reform, an eight-hour day, and arbitration of labor disputes. It attempted to unite all laborers. -
Knights of Labor
Terence Powderly led the cause. The first mass labor organization created in America’s working class. The Knights of Labor attempted to bridge boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a “universal brotherhood” of all workers. Excluded the Chinese. Wanted workplace safety laws, prohibition of child labor, a federal tax on the nation’s highest incomes, public ownership of telegraphs and railroads, and government recognition of workers’ right to organize. -
Yellow Dog Contracts
(1870-1930) An agreement some companies forced workers to take that forbade them from joining a union. This was a method used to limit the power of unions, thus hampering their development to try and take down companies. -
Farmer’s Alliance
An organization that united farmers at the statewide and regional level. United farmers to become stronger together.Some policy goals of this organization included more readily available farm credits and federal regulation of the railroads -
Terence Powderly
(1876-1893) Irish-American leader of the Knights of Labor who won several strikes for the eight-hour day. By 1886, his organization was a force to be reckoned with. Led farmers hoping to unite farmers and work together for farmers. -
Great Railroad Strike
A group of railroad workers led by Eugene Debs on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad rose up and began to strike due to wage cuts. This spread up and down the railroad line across the nation. Railroads were torched. President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in troops to stop the strike. Around 100 people died in the strike. -
Lock Out
(1880s-1930s) The refusal by an employer to allow employees to work unless they agree to his or terms. Practiced by Carnegie Steel during Homestead Strike, common strategy. -
Scabs
(1880s-1930s) A non-union worker who usually worked for low wages. They were used as strikebreakers since they were not part of a union and were cheap to hire allowing for large groups to be formed. -
Haymarket Square
This was called the Haymarket Square Bombing. It was destroyed the Knights of Labor. In Chicago, home to about 80,000 Knights and a few hundred anarchists that advocated a violent overthrow of the American government, tensions had been building. Chicago police were advancing on a meeting that had been called to protest brutalities by authorities when a dynamite bomb was thrown, killing or injuring several dozen people. -
American Federation of Labor
The Federation was run by Samuel Gompers, a federation of North American labor unions that merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955. They had bread and butter unionism and wanted better wages and conditions and would strike. -
Samuel Gompers
Led the labor union and was the longest serving president of the AFL. English born president of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 to 1924. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
Prohibited the power of trusts.First law to limit monopolies in the US. An act passed in 1890 which prohibited any "contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce." -
James B. Duke
Opened his first textile mill. Mechanized the tobacco industry and made cigarettes by using machine made items instead of hand rolled. It was a trust giant. Only hired single women. -
Homestead Strike
It was one of the most violent strikes in U.S. history and was near Pittsburgh against the Homestead Steel Works. Homestead Steel Works was part of the Carnegie Steel Company, in Pennsylvania in retaliation against wage cuts. The riot was ultimately put down by Pinkerton Police and the state militia, and the violence further damaged the image of unions. Ten workers were killed in a riot when Scabs were brought in to force an end to the strike. -
Western Federation of Miners
A radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into A call to transform American economic system. It formed many strikes every time owners refused to renegotiate. -
American Railway Union
Led by Eugene Debs, they started the Pullman strike, composed mostly of railroad workers. Ordered no violence. One of the first industrial unions. an industrial union for all railroad workers. -
Pullman Palace Car Strike
Employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a strike in response to recent reductions in wages, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt. President Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to Chicago to end the strike, causing debate within his own cabinet about whether the President had the constitutional authority to do so. Caused by increased working hours, cut wages and cut jobs. -
National Association of Manufactures
Dealt with standards and regulations of manufacturing. There was a focus of creating meThis was an organization that was created by businessmen who supported the creation of schools of business administration. dealt with standards and regulations of manufacturing and was backed by powerful businesses. -
Anthracite Coal Strike
Strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays and the recognition of their union. Theodore Roosevelt summoned both sides to the White House and, after threats of seizure and use of troops, reached a compromise of a 10% pay increase and a nine-hour day. -
National Child Labor Committee
Fought for the right of children in the American Workforce. Florence Kelley helped create the Committee. a reform association that worked (unsuccessfully) to win a federal law banning child labor. This group hired photographer Lewis Hine to record brutal conditions in mines and mills where thousands of children worked. -
Lochner v. New York
Declared unconstitutional a New York act limiting the working hours of bakers due to denial of the 14th Amendment rights. This supreme court case debated whether New York state violated the liberty of the fourteenth amendment which allowed Lochner to regulate his business when he made a contract. The contract Lochner made violated stated that bakers could not work more than 60 hours per week, and more than 10 hours per day. It was ruled that the New York State law was invalid and contract held. -
Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies)
"One Big Union”. This radical union aimed to unite the American working class into one union to promote labor's interests. It worked to organize unskilled and foreign-born laborers, advocated social revolution and led several major strikes. Wobblies stressed solidarity and was led by "Mother" Jones, Elizabeth Flynn, Big Bill Haywood, and Eugene Debs. It strove to unite all laborers, including unskilled workers and African Americans. -
Eugene Debs
The American Railway Union was led by Eugene V. Debs. Debs encouraged the American Railway Union to put pressure on the railroad companies so that they would challenge Pullman. He was a convert for socialism and applied his beliefs to labor. -
Loewe v. Lawlor
US labor law concerning the application of antitrust laws to labor unions. A case in 1908 that ruled that secondary boycotts, aimed by strikers at other companies doing business with their employer, such as suppliers of materials, were illegal the Sherman Antitrust Act. -
Muller v. Oregon
Whether the Constitution permits states to pass laws to protect the health of workers. It was used to justify both sex discrimination and usage of labor laws. Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of laws protecting women workers by presenting evidence of the harmful effects of factory labor on women's weaker bodies. -
Clayton Anti-Trust Act
The act added to the Sherman law's list of objectionable trust practices by forbidding price discrimination. There would be a different price for different people, and interlocking directorates. The same people serving on "competitors" boards of trustees. It also exempted labor unions from being considered trusts and legalized strikes as a form of peaceful assembly. Overall, it helped cut down on monopolies. -
La Follette Seamen’s Act
Reform Law. Sailors were guaranteed good treatment and a decent wage. A negative result was that shipping rates shot upward. It required good treatment of America's sailors. It sent merchant freight rates soaring as a result the cost to maintain a sailor's health. -
Workingmen’s Compensation Act
It provides financial assistance to federal employees who have been injured at work and granted assistance of federal civil-service employees during periods of instability. It was invalidated by the Supreme Court. -
The Adamson Act
This federal law established an eight-hour day with additional pay for overtime work, involved in interstate commerce for interstate railroad workers. It was the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, and was upheld by the Supreme Court Wilson v. New (1917). -
War Industries Board
The organization encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing products. Created in July 1917, the War Industries Board controlled raw materials, production, prices, and labor relations. It was intended to restore economic order and to make sure the United States was producing enough at home and abroad. -
John L. Lewis
(1920-1960) He was the leader of the United Mine Workers who also succeeded in forming the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) within the ranks of the AF of L in 1935.v He was responsible for the Fair Labor Standards Act. Lewis was the founding force behind several national unions. -
Closed Shop
(1930s) A form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to only hire union members, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed. The AFL became known for negotiating closed-shop agreements with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire non-union members. -
Civilian Conservation Corps
A public work relief for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families as part of the New Deal. It employed about 3 million men to work on projects that benefited the public, planting trees to reforest areas, building levees for flood control, and improving national parks, etc. Men only keep 20-25% of their wages, and the rest was sent back to family. -
National Labor Relations Board
An independent federal agency created by the U.S. Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act (also called the Wagner Act) and was charged with mediating disputes between management and labor unions. The act was amended in 1947 through the Taft-Hartley Act and in 1959 through the Landrum-Griffin Act. -
Wagner Act
It created National Labor Relations board for administrative purposes & reasserted rights to unionize & bargain through reps. Its main purpose was to establish the legal right of most workers (not including agricultural and domestic workers) to organize or join labor unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. -
Congress of Industrial Organization
(1935-1955) Led by John L. Lewis, originally began as a group of unskilled workers who organized themselves into effective unions. As their popularity grew they came known for the revolutionary idea of the "sit down strike", their efforts lead to the passage of the Fair Labor Standard Act and the organization continued to thrive under the New Deal. It was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from. -
The Bracero Program
Meaning "manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms". Program established by agreement with the Mexican government to recruit temporary Mexican agricultural workers to the United States to make up for wartime labor shortages in the Far West. The program persisted until 1964, by when it had sponsored 4.5 million border crossings. The Bracero Program was created by executive order because many growers argued that World War II would bring labor shortages to low-paying agricultural jobs. -
The Taft Hartley Act
The act was condemned by Labor leaders as a "slave labor law". It outlawed the "closed" shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a non-communist oath. Republican-promoted, anti-union legislation that weakened many the New Deal gains for labor by banning the closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required union leaders to take a non-communist oath.