We have been looking at the terrible working conditions most workers found themselves faced with during the Industrial Revolution. What were some of the issues they had to deal with?
Simply stated, a union is a group of workers that have banded together to promote or achieve common goals. In our example, a union would be made up of the factory workers or textile mill workers who were being mistreated during the Industrial Revolution.
One of the strengths of a union is something that is called collective bargaining. According to your text (p. 657), collective bargaining is when "union representatives negotiate with employers over wages and hours", although collective bargaining could also be over other things such as vacation time, benefits, or other things workers want from their employers. The idea here is that the representatives are speaking for all of the people of the union (hence the word "collective"), which should let the employers know that EVERYONE is unhappy and wants change. Sounds logical, right? But what if the employer doesn't care what the union wants? What if the employer doesn't even recognize the union as existing? What options do the unions have then?
To be able to put pressure on employers to change their position on key items (such as reduced working hours and fair pay), unions fought for the right to strike. A strike is a term used to define a union's call for all of its workers to stop working until its demands are met. So, if the textile mill you are working in won't cut your work week back to five days of twelve hours each, for example, your union might tell you to refuse to go to work, or to strike.
There were a couple of problems with strikes, especially during the Industrial Revolution. First, there were no established rules governing unions, so not all unions acted the same or got the same results. Two, there was always the possibility that your employer would simply fire you for going on strike, especially if they refused to recognize the union in the first place. Finally, and most importantly, in the 1870's, Great Britain had laws on the books that didn't allow unions to legally strike. It was a long process, but eventually, and without going into too much depth, union workers eventually won the right to strike legally, and things began to change...SLOWLY...for the working class of the Industrial Revolution.
During this same time frame, another new idea was starting to see popularity due to the rapidly expanding markets created by the railroads and steamboats. This new idea allowed for manufactured goods to be built much more quickly and efficiently. Based upon the ideas of divisions of labor, which Frederick Taylor came up with, this new manufacturing technique was eventually perfected by Henry Ford. The new idea? The assembly line. In an assembly line, each person on the line has a specific job to do, and that is all they do. There is no need for a person to be able to do mulitple jobs because each person is responsible only for his or her specific job. If you are a screw-tightener, then you tighten a specific screw (or set of screws) on whatever item is being produced, and then you pass it down the assembly line to the next person.
- Long hours
- Low pay
- Dangerous working conditions
- No voice in their treatment or their work environment
Simply stated, a union is a group of workers that have banded together to promote or achieve common goals. In our example, a union would be made up of the factory workers or textile mill workers who were being mistreated during the Industrial Revolution.
One of the strengths of a union is something that is called collective bargaining. According to your text (p. 657), collective bargaining is when "union representatives negotiate with employers over wages and hours", although collective bargaining could also be over other things such as vacation time, benefits, or other things workers want from their employers. The idea here is that the representatives are speaking for all of the people of the union (hence the word "collective"), which should let the employers know that EVERYONE is unhappy and wants change. Sounds logical, right? But what if the employer doesn't care what the union wants? What if the employer doesn't even recognize the union as existing? What options do the unions have then?
To be able to put pressure on employers to change their position on key items (such as reduced working hours and fair pay), unions fought for the right to strike. A strike is a term used to define a union's call for all of its workers to stop working until its demands are met. So, if the textile mill you are working in won't cut your work week back to five days of twelve hours each, for example, your union might tell you to refuse to go to work, or to strike.
There were a couple of problems with strikes, especially during the Industrial Revolution. First, there were no established rules governing unions, so not all unions acted the same or got the same results. Two, there was always the possibility that your employer would simply fire you for going on strike, especially if they refused to recognize the union in the first place. Finally, and most importantly, in the 1870's, Great Britain had laws on the books that didn't allow unions to legally strike. It was a long process, but eventually, and without going into too much depth, union workers eventually won the right to strike legally, and things began to change...SLOWLY...for the working class of the Industrial Revolution.
During this same time frame, another new idea was starting to see popularity due to the rapidly expanding markets created by the railroads and steamboats. This new idea allowed for manufactured goods to be built much more quickly and efficiently. Based upon the ideas of divisions of labor, which Frederick Taylor came up with, this new manufacturing technique was eventually perfected by Henry Ford. The new idea? The assembly line. In an assembly line, each person on the line has a specific job to do, and that is all they do. There is no need for a person to be able to do mulitple jobs because each person is responsible only for his or her specific job. If you are a screw-tightener, then you tighten a specific screw (or set of screws) on whatever item is being produced, and then you pass it down the assembly line to the next person.
In this example, the person on your right picks up a cylinder and puts it on the conveyor belt. The second person applies a light coat of paint, or possibly primer. The third person applies the final coat of paint then stacks the finished cylinder on a separate platform at the end. Each person has very specific jobs. Person one never goes from his station to the end station, because then who would start the next item on the assembly line? The middle person never goes to another job because how would we go from step one to step three? While not exciting, especially for the people working on the assembly line, there is no denying that the use of the assembly line greatly increased production speed and efficiency, making more products available and driving down the costs of manufactured goods.
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| (Ford's assembly line in 1913) |
It was because of the assembly line, for example, that Henry Ford was able to achieve his goal of making a car that the average family could afford. Many people think that the Model T was the first American car, but this is not true; the Model T was actually the first affordable American car, at least for most Americans. In 1909, a Model T cost $850 (just under $22,000 in today's dollars), while most other cars cost between $2,000 and $3,000 (about $51,000-$77,000 in today's money). By 1914, the cost of a Model T dropped to around $500.
So why were Ford's cars so much cheaper? Using the assembly line method of production, Ford was able to crank out the Model T car at a MUCH faster rate than before the assembly line was put in place. How much faster? Before the assembly line was put into place, it took between 12 and 13 hours to put together a single Model T, so they cost more. After the assembly line system was installed, a Model T could be built in just 93 minutes, which allowed Ford to build more cars than any other car maker, which allowed them to keep the price lower. In fact, by 1914, Ford had more cars on the road than all other car makers COMBINED.
Although these two ideas, trade unions and assembly lines, don't appear to have a lot in common, both made the lives of the people of the Industrial Revolution better. Trade unions put more money in the pockets of the workers, which allowed them the ability to purchase items to further improve their lives. The assembly line allowed manufactured goods to be produced much more quickly, which drove down costs, and allowed a worker's pay to stretch even further. In the late 1800's, there was no way a factory worker could likely dream of owning a car, for example. However, by 1914, for about four month's wages, an assembly line worker could afford to buy one of the Model T cars he was working on!
Imagine the other positive changes the lives of the working class saw between the establishment of trade unions and the installation of assembly lines...
Maybe these two things have something in common after all...
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