Several years later, company guards and state troops in Ludlow, Colorado, opened fire on mining families as they fled from a tent city that the guards and troops had set on fire. During an 1897 coal-mining strike in Pennsylvania, for example, 18 miners were killed and 40 wounded after being shot in the back by a sheriff’s deputies. Summarizing this period, two labor historians note that the United States “has had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation in the world” (Taft & Ross, 1990, p. Workers themselves rioted to protest their low wages and abject working conditions. Many strikes became violent, as companies brought in armed guards, state troopers, and strikebreakers to put down the strikes. Workers who then went on strike were held in contempt of court by the judge as juries were kept out of the process.ĭonkeyHotey – Together We Bargain – CC BY 2.0. When juries began finding them not guilty, employers turned to asking judges for injunctions that prohibited strikes. Strikers were often arrested for violating laws prohibiting strikes. Companies told each other which workers were suspected of being union members, and these workers were then prevented from getting jobs. To improve wages and working conditions, many labor unions were founded after the Civil War, only to meet determined opposition from companies, the government, and the courts. The typical employee worked at least 10 hours a day for 6 or 7 days a week, with almost no overtime pay and no paid vacations or holidays. The pay that workers received was quite low, and the conditions in which they worked were often miserable. One of the most important developments accompanying industrialization was the rise of labor unions and their conflict with management over wages and working conditions (Dubofsky & Dulles, 2010). Workers and Management After Industrialization
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