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Railroad Strike 1877
Because of the civil war, there was an inflation in railroad construction. Wages were cut which is why the strike emerged which lasted 45 days. Power of labor unions must have risen as more people refused to work during that time frame -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The idea of this law was to control the market from building monopolies. There were states laws which prohibited this but no national law. This act was essential because of the standard oil company which controlled the entire market. This act was beneficial to the union as workers could choose where they wanted to work, instead of working in one place which could have low wages and poor working conditions. -
Homestead Strike
Andrew Carnegie puts his assistant in charge of workers and they were essentially prepared for the strike, as he did not want anything bad to happen when he was out of the country. Small group of workers decided they were not satisfied with the working hours, wage and the working conditions. They created a union and took a strike, also they blocked the company from hiring new employees. -
Pullman Strike
This strike is similar to the Railroad strike in 1877. This occurred in Illinois and for the most part shut down passenger traffic going West. The strike occurred mainly because of wage reductions, for almost 4000 workers in the Pullman car company. -
LA Times Bombing
This bomb killed 21 newspaper employees and injured more than a hundred employees. Union members were left furious as not many actions were taken after this incident. The members found an expensive attorney and fought the case against the two Irish Brothers. -
Prohibiton
This was where the government made production and transportation of alcohol illegal. This definitely was not ideal situation for unions as many of the jobs were cut out. -
Railway Labor Act
This was essentially a law that required employees to bargain equally and not to discriminate their employees based on if they are part of a union. Difficult to the say how much this affected the unions, there might have been a increase in unions nevertheless. -
Fair Labor Standards Act
This law set the minimum wage to 25 cents at the time. At that time period workers worked around 44 hours, the act reduced the time to 40 hours decreasing the number of hours a week. This law was passed in favor of unions as it protected employers exploitation. -
Post WWII Strike
Veteran return to United States, there is a shortage of homes. More people wanted jobs. Workers decided to strike again to increase wage, because of inflation caused by WWII. Unions gained a little power since the people got a voice. However, this negatively affected big companies. -
9/11
This was when the twin towers were attacked by terrorists who crashed the planes in the two towers. This was a very sad time for America, however union were delighted as jobs opened up and they were paid higher wages.
