Labor Unions In The 19th Century

Labor Unions In the years of Post-Civil War the United States was on a path of capitalism, big-business, and becoming a Global Force that all countries would begin to recognize as powerful. Though this time period shown progression for industry and for the U.S. economy it also marked a rise of the working class, and of social stratification because the big business owners became richer and more powerful while the poor workers scavenged for jobs to feed their families. Disgusted by the poverty wages they received while the factory owners were reaping enormous profits, workers organized into Labor Unions that agitated for change. Labor Unions were generally successful in organizing workers but not particularly successful in achieving their
The National Labor Union was the first union to organize workers regardless of their race, gender, and skilled or not skilled workers. NLU only succeeded in winning an eight-hour workday for federal employees and was otherwise very unsuccessful in reaching their goals. The second major union was the Knights of Labor, which had objectives including racial and gender equality, also higher wages, and a shorter workday. The Knights of Labor, although it was able to gather workers and form organized strikes, was disorganized after the Haymarket Affair in 1886. Workers had organized to protest the treatment at the McCormick Harvester Factory as police were dealing with the rioters an unknown assailant threw a bomb that killed some of the police officers, the government and the general public blamed Labor Unions for the violence which lead to the disbandment of the Knights of Labor. The AFL or American Federation of Labor, under its president Samuel Grompers, was open exclusively to skilled workers, this Labor Union sought to achieve “realistic” goals. These Labor Unions were hardly successful in accomplishing any of their goals, but by at least getting their ideas heard, were able to go down
The executive, judicial, and legislative branches were all fundamental to the expansion of monopoly capitalism. Although the state government, under the Fourteenth Amendment, found that it was essential to address issues such as work and living conditions. The Court ruled that corporations had the same Fourteenth Amendment rights as citizens. The business was protected from the rulings in cases like: The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), which declared that any combination or condition that is in restraint of trade is illegal. Monopoly capitalism was preserved while unions that went on strike were served with a court ruling for being in restraint of trade and that in the case of the Pullman Strike of 1894, President Cleveland’s administration, was found illegal and troops were sent to make sure that the strikers did not interfere with the train delivery of the U.S. Mail, also Eugene Debs and other union leaders were jailed for violating the federal injunction. The United States vs. E. C. Knight Company, the pro-business Supreme Court ruled that because E. C. Knight was engaged in manufacturing sugar and not in interstate commerce, it was regulated by state and not federal law. Therefore, it could not be dismantled by the federal government. From these rulings in the Supreme Court the businesses are above the law