Thursday, May 21, 2009

The greatest wave of labor unrest in American history

Fortunately, I take history class in this semester. I have learned a lot which are about Americans how to fight for their liberty, especially African Americans, immigrants, women and so on.
In 1919, over 4 million workers engaged in strikes---the greatest wave of labor unrest in American history. The strike wave reached its peak in the era's greatest labor uprising, the steel strike. Centered in Pittsburgh and Chicago, this united more than 360,000 mostly immigrant workers in demands for union recognition, higher wages and an eight-hour workday. Before this strike, the steel mills were autocracies, where managers arbitrarily established wages and working conditions. They even suppressed all efforta at union organizing. In order to get freedom for everybody, steel workers held this great strike.

3 comments:

  1. Great reference - can you give us the link for this information?

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  2. I just found it in my history textbook. It is from documentary history "Voices of Freedom".

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  3. Interesting - are there original documents about these events?

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