madchemist wrote:
Must be tough not to be able to negotiate on your own merits, but needing the masses to help you.
really, you need to stop working so hard at being a complete fucking idiot.
You need to stop thinking you're smart while proving you're a moron.
.
Approximately 35,000 workers a year were killed annually in work-related accidents from 1880 to 1900. Injured workers totaled another 536,000.
Between 1905 and 1920, there were an average of 2000 fatal accidents in the coal mining industry every year.
The unemployment rate before World War I rarely fell below 8% for full-time jobs. Underemployed workers probably counted for about 25% of the work force. A minority of urban workers had full-time year-round work.
Before 1920 about one in every four non-farm children under fourteen worked full-time.
Before the 1930s less than half of Americans received more than a grade school education.
In the era of dramatic industrialization following the Civil War, the most powerful of the big business corporations were the railroad companies. In order to protect their profits during the economic depression that had begun in 1873, they companies had reduced the pay of railroad workers by ten percent.
In 1877 they announced another ten percent reduction in the workers' pay, and also that railroad employees would be required to use company hotels when away from home, which meant a further reduction in real wages. On top of this, they decided to reduce the work-force - which meant unemployment for some and intensified labor for those remaining.
On July 16, a spontaneous strike erupted in Martinsburg, West Virginia and quickly spread to cities from St. Louis and Chicago to New York and Baltimore - hitting Pittsburgh on July 19.
To "keep the peace" and break the strike, state militia units from Philadelphia were ordered to Pittsburgh. (Militia units from Pittsburgh were deemed unreliable because they sympathized with the strikers.) On July 21, six hundred troops arrived from Philadelphia. Led by Superintendent Robert Pitcairn of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a posse of constables with arrest warrants for the strike leaders, they found themselves confronted by crowds of men, women and children. The crowds, loudly protesting the troops' presence and expressing support for the strikers, sought to prevent military action. The militiamen responded with a bayonet charge that resulted in injuries and provoked a hail of rocks from some sections of those assembled. The troops then opened fire on the unarmed men, women, and children, scattering them - and leaving at least twenty dead (including one woman and three small children) and twenty-nine wounded.
Workers from other cities and towns in Pennsylvania joined in the strikes or in rallies and meetings supporting the strike. General strikes, mass demonstrations, and sometimes violent confrontations rocked cities in many other states as well, though none exceeded the violence of the Pittsburgh battles.
On July 26, however, regular troops of the U.S. Army joined with state militia units to take control of the city and reopen all railroad operations in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City. The strike was systematically broken throughout the country by similar means by the end of July. This was the first time in U.S. history that federal troops were utilized against strikers and labor protests
Challenge your beliefs, learn something outside of your comfort zone.
Statistics: Posted by Curmudgeon — Tue Aug 16, 2016 7:49 pm