6labor



[|Taft-Hartley Act] =Period 6=

The Problem(s)

 * Factories were becoming overcrowded with the growing numbers of people wanting to work for large companies, including childrem and women.
 * Employers to employee relationships were nonexistent. It was very unlikely that the owner knew his workers.
 * **Workers worked very long hours**, usually around 10-14 hours a day and 6-7 days a week.
 * **Wages were low** with little or no pay for overtime. Companies also didn’t pay workers for vacations or days off if they had any at all.
 * **Working conditions** were very unhealthy and dangerous for workers. The employees were not given adequate safety equipment. Many people got hurt by getting body parts getting caught in machines.
 * When workers talked back to their supervisor or was ever late to work they would be either fired or fined.
 * **Many children worked** to help there family and they they could also get there little fingers in the machines. And they were also paid very low wages because owners could pay kids half as much as an adult.
 * Some workers joined **labor unions** to get better wages conditions, hours and safer factories. Majority of these were unsuccessful and companies affected countered the unions with lockouts and by hiring strikebreakers.
 * Also the companies just hired new workers in the event of a strike. The government would also usually intervene with the police to break up strikes.

The Solution(s)

 * Instead of working 14 hours a day, the city and state governments forced 8 - hour working days.
 * Laws were passed enforcing that if you were **under** 1**4 years of age,** you wouldn’t be able to work.
 * Better **working conditions.**
 * Laws that allowed unions to strike, boycott, and picket peacefully.
 * **Provide** **insurance** for work-connected injuries.
 * **Wages** were **standarized** and the **hours** too.
 * The governemnt also established a [|Department of Commerce] to stop monopolies and trusts.

The Images
Rob Kidd, one of the young workers in a glass factory. Alexandria, Va.

Young cigar makers in Engelhardt & Co. Three boys looked under 14. Labor leaders told me in busy times many small boys and girls were employed. Youngsters all smoke.

-Boy workers at a coal company pose for a picture.



The Primary Sources
"An Act to amend the [|Labor Relations Act], to provide additional facilities for the mediation of labor disputes affecting commerce, to equalize legal responsibilities of labor organization and employers, and for other purposes." -[|Taft-Hartley Act] "For many years I have followed the procession of child workers winding through a thousand industrial communities from the canneries of Maine to the fields of Texas. I have heard their tragic stories, watched their cramped lives, and seen their fruitless struggles in the industrial game where the odds are all against them." -[|Lewis Hine] "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth. " -[|Industrial Workers of the World: Preamble to Constitution (1905)]

The Citations

 * "Child Labor in America 1908 - 1912." The History Place. 21 Febraury 2007. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html
 * History handout
 * "Department of Labor." __ABC-CLIO__. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/library/searches/searchdisplay.aspx?fulltext=child+labor&nav=rlist&specialtopicid=-1&entryid=247042&categorytypeid=1.
 * "Julia Lathorp." __ABC-CLIO__. 2007. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/library/searches/searchdisplay.aspx?fulltext=child+labor&nav=rlist&specialtopicid=-1&entryid=247271&categorytypeid=1.
 * "child labor." __ABC-CLIO__. 2007. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/library/searches/searchdisplay.aspx?entryid=262153&fulltext=child+labor&nav=rlist&specialtopicid=-1.
 * "boy laborers at coal company in 1911." __ABC-CLIO__. 2007. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/library/searches/searchdisplay.aspx?fulltext=child+labor&nav=rlist&specialtopicid=-1&entryid=560112&categorytypeid=2.
 * "Taft-Harley Act." __ABC-CLIO__. 2007. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/lessons/topics/topicdisplay.aspx?highlightid=4&topic=2&conceptid=18&nav=rlist&entryid=255154&categorytypeid=1&relateddisplay=true.
 * "Industrial Workers of the World: Preamble to Constitution (1905)." __ABC-CLIO__. 2007. ABC-CLIO. 21 Feb 2007 <[|http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/lessons/topics/topicdisplay.aspx?highlightid=4&topic=2&conceptid=18&nav=rlist&entryid=254450&categorytypeid=1&relateddisplay=true>.]