Since there was no groundwork to rationalize and show examples of the success of organized labor, it was nearly impossible to make it work at this time. If unions were going to work, striking would have to be effective and clearly, they weren't. In the 1860's, the National Labor Union was formed to unify workers in fighting for higher wages, an 8 hour work day and various social causes and it set the stage for many failing unions to come. In 1877, railroad workers in this union from across the country took part in an enormous strike that resulted in mass violence and very few reforms. Afterwards, a editorial in The New York Times stated: "the strike is apparently hopeless, and must be regarded as nothing more than a rash and spiteful demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless to understand their own interests" (Document B). This editorial, which was clearly in favor of labor reforms, was acknowledging that this method of fighting was not going to work for the laborers at this time. A failure of this magnitude so early on in the movement should have been enough to put it to halt, however, year after year, strikes were breaking and little was being done in the workers favors. In 1892, workers at the Homestead Steel Plant near Pittsburg walked…
The chronology of the case shows a progression of "appropriate" action within the existing law and according to organization or bureaucratic norms. On an organiza¬tional level, the players include the State of Illinois, the U.S. Government, the Centralia Coal Company, the United Mine Workers of America, and the miners themselves, who could hardly be said to have been well represented by any of the others.…
However all of these factory workers were extremely underpaid, and with no union or representation by any political parties, and they were often mistreated and overworked as well. The workers of that time were practically slaves, with little to no independence who could only subject himself to the of will of corporations in order to scrape together a living. (Document C) While they often remained silent, they did sometimes rise against the corporations in a few strikes. One of the most notable of these strikes was the Pullman Strike of 1896 in which thousands of workers received wage cuts from Pullman Palace Car Company, and blocked the railroads nearby in retaliation. The strike only ended when Pullman himself contacted President Grover Cleveland, who sent armed US troops to disperse it, by pretending that it blocked mail transport, which led to around 30 deaths. This event shows that not only did the corporation have a complete lack of sympathy for their workers, but it shows their powerful influence over the government as well, shifting even the President to their side. It did not even end there, as industries such the copper trust, steel beem trust, and the standard oil trust, along with the railroads were all truly in control, corrupting the decisions of the senate. (Document…
Ended the coal strike in Pennsylvania in 1902 by threatening to use soldiers to take over the mines. The coal miners and owners knew they would lose money if this happen, so they accepted an arbitration commission.…
The year of 1877 was when numerous strikes occurred. The strikes were led by railroad workers in dozens of cities. The reason why they were on strike was because of wage cuts. The workers already had low wages to begin with. They were also on strike because of schemes, deaths and injuries. Some worker had lost hands, feet and fingers. Some workers were even crushed in between cars. The railroad workers announced that no more trains would leave Martinsburg until the 10 percent cut was canceled. Things had started to get out of hand during the strike because a gun had gone off. The federal troops were then called and they moved the freight cars. (Document 6)…
There are lots of terrible conditions we have in the coalmine. We work in a room which is surrounded with clouds of coal dust. We inhale coal dust all day and because of this, we suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions. We suffer from hearing impairments because of the noise coming from the grinding machine. We are not allowed to wear gloves because our boss thinks that we could better handle slick materials and so we could work faster. The slates that we remove are very sharp so we often have our fingers cut. If we were caught wearing gloves or did not do our job right our boss would beat us, smack us with a club or throw rocks at our finger. Some of us would have their fingers amputated by the fast moving belts. The new ones would develop blood finger tips. We also suffer from red tips. This is caused by sulfuric acid from the coal. The most brutal one is when we breaker boys move among the machinery, some boys became caught under the conveyor belts which makes some boys lose their feet, hands arms, or legs and even such accidents happens the production continues even if someone is crashed to death. The bodies will be only retrieved at the end of the workday. Sometimes, a boy would fall…
In 1877, there was a national railroad strike that effected the transportation throughout the Northeast. Railroads required a large amount of capital investments and relied on a large management system. Railroad companies had competed against each other. Rival companies built expensive lines which could have been parallel to their competitors. They fought for business by promoting a faster and cheaper service. Not only that, but laborers had to work 15-hour days with low wages and in extremely dangerous working conditions. The railroad workers were quite violent, attacking railroad yards, burning trains, and tearing up tracks. This time period was a shock for most Americans, but for the workers on strike, it was educative. The workers learned…
When the country faced a coal shortage in the fall of 1902 because of a strike in Pennsylvania, the President thought he should get involved. As winter approached and heating shortages were impending, he started to formulate ideas about how he could use the executive office to play a role. Roosevelt called both the mine owners and the representatives of labor together at the White House. When management refused to negotiate, he devised a plan to force the two sides to talk: instead of sending federal troops to break the strike and force the miners back to work, T.R. threatened to use troops to seize the mines. Faced with Roosevelt's plan, the owners and labor unions agreed to submit their cases to a commission and abide by its…
The Anthracite Coal mining strike would allow for the government to step in again and put in place an 8ish hour work day. This was a HUGE piece of the platform. And this was in 1902... who had a hand in that?…
Such unions would fight for higher wages and less hours for most workers and would sometimes go on strike if necessary. A prime example of this was the railroad strike of 1877 where employers were calling for a 10 percent wage cut. Although this turned into a deadly conflict it showed why unions were needed in America to ensure the fair treatments of workers by their…
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) have been through the vilest and finest of periods, and yet, they still provide the miners with strength and union. The early guilds and new unions serve a comparable purpose of offering an unwavering care to its members. No matter what difficulties a member may be faced with, all the members of the guild or union will fight for that certain member's rights. They are a family! This union has protected the members from various problems such as being unlawfully treated, or being poorly paid for their work. The UMWA began in 1890, for safe workstations, good salaries, and reasonable behavior throughout North America occupations. The United Mine Workers of America establish a great leadership and hard work…
Coal mining is taking coal out of the earth for use as fuel, and there are two types of it: surface and mountaintop mining and underground mining. Coal is one of the most important resources because of its ability to be a fuel.…
Plundering Appalachia - The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining." YouTube. YouTube, 07 Aug. 2009. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.…
United States Department of Labor. (nd). Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, Public Law 91-173, as amended by Public Law 95-164. Retrieved from: http://www.msha.gov/REGS/ACT/ACT1.HTM…
The upcoming fight between the environmental protection agency and congress in on the usage of coal and is known as “War on Coal”. The environmental protection agency has funded many ads which support the President Obama’s vision of limiting carbon dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants. The ad campaign will target five states New Hampshire, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Washington D.C. According to environmental protection agency the congress has to decide if they are in favor of applying limits on highest carbon emitting sources or they prefer not to impose limits. The coal industry is urging President Obama’s administration to ease carbon dioxide limits for coal plants. The coal industry also state the fact that they have invested a huge amount on pollution control and if the environmental protection agency forces t to close the coal fired power plant they will lose a large revenue. Also President Obama announced that we will use his executive authority to address global warming and his plan involves limiting the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The environmental protection agency previously proposed emissions limits that would effectively ban the construction of coal-fired power plants unless they used carbon capture technology, which is not commercially viable. According to the American coalition for clean coal electricity, more than 280 coal fired power plants will shut down due to environmental protection agency regulations.…