Railroads and Labor Unions
What was one cause of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?
Railroad companies rejected workers’ requests for higher wages, shorter working hours, and safer conditions.
What is the definition of a strike?
a union strategy involving work stoppage designed to put pressure on an employer
Why did the development of time zones make train schedules more reliable?
Time zones created a standard of time that all trains followed.
Samuel Gompers, the leader of the American Federation of Labor, would not have approved of his Union supporting a political party. Why?
Supporting a political party would mean that whatever the political party believes will be seen as what the Union believes and can cause larger issues.
As a result of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, railroad companies lost millions of dollars because
of property damage and decreased worker productivity.
What is the meaning of the word "bribery?"
Company management secretly pays a worker to tell them which coworkers have discussed forming or joining a union.
In the mid to late 1800s, the US government granted land to railroad companies to expand their networks. What is another way that railroad companies used the land?
They sold the land to farmers and ranchers.
How did the leadership of Samuel Gompers from the American Federation of Labor differ from Terence Powderly of the Knights of Labor?
Gompers focused on common issues to unify the members.
What was the main reason the United States government intervened in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?
The government considered railroads to be critical to national security and ended the strike for chiefly economic reasons.
Action taken by employers to keep unions from forming is called
union busting.
What types of jobs were created by the Industrial Revolution?
Factory/Production jobs
What was President Hayes’s reaction to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?
President Hayes sent militias and federal troops from town to end the strike.
Why were union workers who had been blacklisted following the Pullman Strike finding it almost impossible to find another job?
Employers mostly believed that they were "trouble makers," untrustworthy, and dangerous for the business.
What was a "yellow-dog" contract?
When a worker would sign a document that promises that you will not join a labor union
What is "Collective Bargaining?"
union leaders negotiating on behalf of a group of workers
What was Henry Frick's main strategy for stopping the Homestead Strike?
Frick hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to come to Homestead and try to break up the strike.
What is one specific way that living in a company town prevented workers from forming organized labor unions?
Company agents were constantly monitoring residents- people feared losing their homes
What is a "wildcat strike?"
a strike not approved by a union
This group organized one of the first strikes in the country; what was the name of the group?
the Lowell Mill girls
Explain John D. Rockefeller's vertical monopoly.
Vertical monopoly was when Rockefeller bought up all of the companies that produced oil and put all of those companies under his own company which created a monopoly in production.