"The Great Strike, 1877---Labor Union History (Good Weekend Read)

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The Great Strike--Labor Union History

Terrors Reign, The Streets of Chicago Given Over to Howling Mobs of Thieves and Cutthroats."
-Chicago Times headline, 1877



130 years ago America was a different place. Labor unions were small in number and relatively powerless, the federal government was immensely corrupt, and the presidential election had just been openly rigged.
Hmmm. OK. Maybe America wasn't different from today's world after all. But it was a great deal different from the America of most of that 130 years.

On September 18, 1873, the country experienced a financial panic so severe that Wall Street closed for 10 days. By 1875, 18,000 businesses had failed and the unemployment rate had risen to 14%.
For America the mid-1870's was still very early in the Industrial Revolution. There was no social safety net, so when the breadwinner lost his job the whole family went hungry. While industry was growing and expanding, the workers rights movement was still in its infancy. Craft unions only represented 1% of the workforce. The first attempt at a national union had been a complete bust. Even after the economic downturn ended businesses cut wages, and cut wages some more, and kept cutting them, and there was nothing the working man could do about it. Wages had been cut by as much as 45% and most employees were working part time.
The new industries showed little respect for working people. Many paid the workers in company script which could only be redeemed at company stores while requiring the workers to live in company housing. Working 10 hours a day, six days a week was the norm. The new industrial machines were dangerous and the courts would rarely favor lawsuits for injuries sustained. The Robber Barons of the day justified it with Social Darwinism.

This environment needed only a spark to have an explosion.

The Great Strike of 1877

The Great Strike was unprecedented for many reasons. It was the first nationwide strike. It saw some of the first general strikes in America. It was far larger than any strike before it, and rarely matched in size after it. But the biggest difference was that it was the only national strike in American history that wasn't led by a labor union. In fact, labor union members were a minority of the strikers.
Instead of being simply a strike by a labor union against a certain company about specified grievances, the Great Strike resembled a general working class revolt against the establishment. It was leaderless and uncoordinated, and for that reason it was also probably the most violent strike in American history.
Nothing in America was ever the same after the Great Strike.

Even before the Great Strike had started there was labor trouble. Pennsylvania Railroad slashed wages by another 10% in June of 1877, while doubling the size of trains going east without adding any additional crew. Angry railroad workers stopped the trains in protest. Management decided to preempt a strike and started firing unionized workers.

No sooner had these measures for economy in the company's management gone into effect, than the class, and only the class— utterly worthless employees— to, began their secret meetings and their seditious efforts.

The following month, on July 11, 1877, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad copied Pennsylvania and cut wages by 10% while reducing the workweek by at least a day. It was the second pay cut of the year for B&O. At Martinsburg, West Virginia, the workers had had enough.

Much More with Photo's at.....

http://www.economicpopulist.org/?q=content/great-strike