Activity: The Growth of UnionsAmerican Industrial

Revolution

What is a Union? Why would someone want to join a union?

What can a Union do to achieve it’s goals?

PAIR SHARE

Students will be able to explain what unions are and why they were created by creating a thinking map.

Objective

The Triangle Shirt-Waist Factory Fire

Introduction

Film Clip: Triangle Fire

Triangle Fire – (1911) One hundred and fifty people, mostly young women, died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City.

Fire fighters arrived soon after the alarm was sounded but ladders only reached the 6th floor and pumps could not raise water to the highest floors of the 10-story building.  Still the fire was quickly controlled and was essentially extinguished in half an hour.  In this fire-proof building, 146 men, women, and children lost their lives and many others were seriously injured.

The 240 employees sewing shirtwaists on the ninth floor had their escape blocked by back-to-back chairs and workbaskets in the aisles.  The 75-foot long paired sewing machine tables obstructed essential access to the windows, stairs, and elevators.

Few of the terrified workers on the 9th floor knew that a fire escape was hidden behind iron window shutters. The ladder descended next to the building forcing those fleeing to climb down through flames as they struggled past other shutters stuck open across their path.  The design had been deemed inadequate and the material from which it was made was insubstantial.  After a few made their way down, the heat of the fire and weight of the people caused the ladder to twist and collapse dropping many who had chosen it as their lifeline. 

For endless hours, police officers held lanterns to light the bodies while crowds filed past victims laid out in numbered rough brown coffins.  As the dead were identified the coffin was closed and moved aside.  Forty-three were identified by sunrise on Sunday. Six days later 7 were still unrecognized. 

Labor unions, religious communities, political groups and social reform organizations assembled to mourn the lost lives and demand real progress in worker protection.  At times their differences in methods and priorities threatened to take back gains made in public awareness and the commitment to act.

Problems Workers Faced

Low wages Long hours (10-14 hours a day) No unemployment, no health

care benefits Government does not help

because of Laissez Faire  

Problem #1 Unfair Working Conditions

Black lung, white lung High injury rate

Problem #2 Unhealthy Working Conditions

Children as young six were employed

Many worked full time Jobs to help support their families

Children were often injured on the job

Problem #3 Child Labor

Lack of sanitation and police Families were often crowded

into one room

Problem #4 Poor Living Conditions

Creating a Union

Laborers wanted to create unions to fight for better wages, better conditions and benefits

Why Join a Union?

Strike: stop working Picket: Protest usually by parading

and holding signs Boycott: Refuse to use a service or

buy a product Arbitration: When the Union &

employer representatives meet to try to come to an agreement w/out having to go to court.

What Unions Can Do

Should it be one large union for everybody?

Should it be specific to an occupation

What Type of Union?

Employers did not want their workers to join unions

If a worker was discovered to be part of a union they were blacklisted

Blacklist=name gets recorded and passed around so that no one will employ him

Employers & Unions

General dislike for unions in America

Poor Public Image

Workers eventually were able to form a variety of unions which gave them improved conditions like overtime and the 8 hour day

What does this graph represent?

Why do you think Union membership increased at the turn of the century?

Why not before?

Working Conditions

Unions Organize

1. Read and highlight important information about The Rise of Labor Unions

2. Choose a “graphic organizer” to graph the information you just read.

3. Create the graphic organizer on your paper and fill it in with the important information from the reading.

Activity: Rise of Labor Unions

Rise of Labor Unions Review

1869 Tried to bring ALL laboring people into one

Skilled, unskilled, black, white, women Supported

Equal pay for women Temperance Abolition of child labor

Arbitration – third party helps to reach agreement

Became unpopular after Haymarket square riot Created bad public opinion

Knights of Labor

1. 1886 – Samuel Gompers2. Skilled workers ONLY3. Separate unions based on craft4. Collective Bargaining – union,

employers, and employees negotiate for better working condition

American Federation of Labor

A F L

Screen Actors Guild

American Postal Workers Union

American Federation of Teachers

United Steel Workers of America

United Farm Workers of America

International Association of Firefighters

Unions of the AFL - CIO

What is a union? Why do workers form unions? What are some strategies

unions could use to get what they want?

Why wouldn’t employers want unions to exist?

Union Review Question