Discussing the Actions Taken by Workers and Government to Try to Correct Unsafe or Unfair Working Conditions in Factories as United States Industrialized

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Another way workers tried to achieve better working conditions was by forming labor unions. Many unions sprung up such as Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor. When workers were to join a trade union such as this one, they might only work 8 hours and get a 70% better wage than other workers. These unions worked for the betterment of all working conditions. They used strikes, letters, and sit-ins to get what they wanted. They would also have secret meetings in houses in the area for members. Some workers joined radical political organizations to improve their conditions (IWW, socialists, and anarchists).

Thirdly, under pressure from strikes and unions, government passed many laws to improve working conditions. President Martin van Buren issued an executive order in 1840 that limited the workday to 10 hours on any federal project. In 1858, Congress passed a law establishing an 8 hour workday for federal employees and a year later, President Ulysses S. Grant issued a presidential proclamation to implement the law. In 1866, the National Labor Union called for an 8 hour workday. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt’s fact-finding commission awarded mine workers a wage increase and a nine-hour day. In 1913 the federal government created the US Department of Labor to foster, promote and develop the welfare of working people, to improve their working conditions and to enhance their opportunities for profitable employment. In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) which gave workers the legal right to form unions and collectively bargain with their employers, but prevented companies from engaging in unfair labor practices to “bust” unions. And it wasn’t until 1937 that the Fair Labor Standards Act established a 40 hour workweek, set a minimum wage and forced employers to pay overtime for any work over 40 hours per week.

The third is unsafe working condition and unfair wage of child labor. Because the demand for labor grew, in the late 19th and early 20the centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910. The immigrant children worked in inhumane conditions in textile mills, flourmills, garment factories, tobacco factories, shoe factories and carpet plants in order to provide a source of income for their families. Children labored for many hours, but received wages that much lower than those received by adult laborers for comparable work.

Children were often employed to move between the dangerous machines as they were small enough to fit between tightly packed machinery. This led to them being placed in a great deal of danger and mortality was quite high in factories. Workdays would often be 10-14 hours with minimal breaks during the shift. Machinery often ran so quickly that little fingers, arm and legs could easily get caught. Beyond the equipment, the environment was a threat to children as well as factories put out fumes and toxins. When inhaled by children these most certainly could result in illness, chronic conditions or disease. For example, in the machinery in textile mills, spinner girls watched numerous rows of bobbins spin at a rapid pace. Their job was to tie threads together that had snapped on the bobbins. A spinner, who worked the night shift at a textile mill in North Carolina in the early 20th century, commented on her job ‘my eyes hurt always from watching the threads at night. Sometimes the threads seem to be cutting into my eyes.’ [5] They ran the risk of losing fingers or a hand in the machinery that rapidly spun the bobbins. Another example of unfair wage for children in factories is at Samuel Slater’s factory. In 1790, in Rhode Island, this factory opened by hiring 7 boys and 2 girls between the ages of 7 and 12, to run his spinning machines. Children received between 33 and 67 cents per week, while adult workers in Rhode Island were earning between $2 and $3 a week.

Reforming child labor laws and creating new laws that would enforce a minimum working age, prohibiting dangerous jobs and conditions and establishing maximum hours children could work was not a popular endeavor. It took several years and many attempts by Congress to pass national laws designed to improve working conditions and regulations relative to children in the workforce.

In 1904, the National Child labor Committee (NCLC) was formed. Lewis Hines, photographer for the NCLC, traveled throughout the United States from 1907 until 1918, filming and photographing children at work. His photographs were publicized in several newspapers. These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of a children’s bureau as an agency of the department of commerce and labor. Its mandate was to examine all matters pertaining to the welfare of children. After a great deal of protest from the NCLC, by 1916, congress passed the Keating-Owens Act that established the following child labor standards in the sale in interstate commerce of goods, a minimum age of 14 for workers in manufacturing and 16 for workers in mining, a maximum workday of 8 hours, prohibition of night work for workers under age 16, and a documentary proof of age. In 1918, the Supreme Court declared the 1916 law unconstitutional. Finally after a long and frustrating legal struggle, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards act in 1938. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, children fourteen and fifteen years old were permitted to work, but only if their work did not interfere with their schooling or health. It prohibited anyone under eighteen from working in mining, manufacturing, logging, and other dangerous occupations. The law also had a minimum wage that applied equally to adults and children. The law limited the number of hours per day a child could work.

The forth is low salary of employed women and actions tried to correct by women. By 1900, nearly 20% of American women were in the labor force. Employed women earned far less than men. An experienced female factory worker might be paid between $5 and $6 a week, whereas an unskilled male labored could make about $8. Discrimination, present from women’s earliest days in the workforce persisted.

Unions were generally hostile to women; men believed women shouldn’t work for wages. Some separate women’s unions did exist, and they sought special legislation for female workers. The International Ladies’ Garment Worker’s union formed in 1900 in an attempt to work against poor working conditions and unfair wage. The union organized a strike of 60,000 workers in New York City in 1909. A National Consumers’ League formed in 1899. Under the leadership of Florence Kelley, the League exposed the appalling working conditions in sweatshops;