​Workers in the

Industrial Age

• ​Workers worked 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

• ​could be fired at anytime for any reasons.

• ​Immigrants were willing to take lower pay .

• ​People often worked in unsafe and unhealthful conditions.

• ​Garment workers worked in crowded and dangerous urban factories known as sweatshops.

​Workers during the Industrial Age

• ​1 million women had joined the work force.

• ​Women earned half of what men did.

• ​Hundreds of thousands of children under 16 worked in industry.

​Labor unions begin

• ​Labor unions are organizations of workers who seek better pay and working conditions.

• ​Workers were often fired for joining unions in the mid 1800s.

• ​First union was called the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869. Met secretly, had 700,000 members by 1886.

• ​Several violent acts turned public against them.

​American Federation of Labor

• ​In in 1886, a group of national trade unions joined together to for the American Federation of Labor,

• ​Represented skilled labor

• ​Led by Samuel Gompers they demanded better working conditions, higher wages, shorter hours and right to collective bargaining.

• ​Had 1.6 million members by 1904

​Unions Take Action

• ​Economic depressions in the 1870s and the 1890s hit workers hard.

• ​Many companies cut costs by forcing workers to take pay cuts, or were fired.

• ​Unions responded with large strikes that sometimes led to violence.