United States History Progressive Labor Movement-Union

University:
Concordia University Wisconsin
Course:
HIST 1215 | American Civilization II
Academic year:

2021
Views:

50

Pages:

2
Author:

Nico Bryan

Progressive Labor Movement/Union ● Labor Union: o An organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer in order to get certain things such as better working conditions, benefits, and pay. Business leaders opposed the efforts of Labor unions to organize and improve conditions. The Clayton Antitrust Act made unions legal. ● Collective Bargaining o Discussions between labor union leaders and management (owners/bosses) to agree on a contract for workers. ● Wagner Act (1935) o Legalized collective bargaining. ● Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire o Tragedy in which many women workers were killed in a factory fire and drew national attention to protect the safety of workers. ● Samuel Gompers o Organized workers into unions in order to strive for better conditions and better pay. ● American Federation of Labor o The first long-lasting, successful labor union in the U.S., because it fought for the rights of skilled workers, focused on gains in wages and working conditions, and was organized on a nationwide basis. ● Pure Food & Drug Act (1906) o Law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of unsafe food products and poisonous medicines. It resulted from demands for direct consumer protection, so the federal government was able to pass it. ● Meat Inspection Act o Created sanitary standards established for slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. It passed as a result of writings of muckrakers, and the publication of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair led congress to pass the law. ● Muckraker o Writers during the progressive era that exposed social ills of inner cities, factory conditions, and political corruption. They focused on issues including the monopoly of Standard Oil, cattle processing, meat packing, child labor, and wages. (Examples: Upton Sinclair, Ida M Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis.) ● Populist Party o A political coalition of farming interests directed against banking and railroads. o A third party that eventually disappeared but proposed ideas that later became law. o Expressed the discontent of many farmers with their ongoing economic problems. o Proposed the national income tax, free and unlimited coinage of silver, direct election of senators, government ownership of railroads. o Supported antitrust laws. o Similar to the Progressive Party because both opposed the strict laissez-faire attitudes of the federal government and wanted the use of Federal power to correct social and economic problems. ● Granger Movement: wanted to force railroads to lower freight fates and to pass laws by increasing federal regulation of monopolies. It was supported by farmers in the west.