Knights of Labor and the afl
Knights of Labor:
- Was under the leadership of Uriah S. Stephens
- Membership was open to all who "toiled", a definition that included all workers and most business and professional people
- Only excluded groups were lawyers, banker, liquor dealers, and professional gamblers.
- Unlike many labor organizations, the Knights welcomed women members
- Lenora Barry, an Irish immigrant who had worked in a New York hosiery factory, ran the Woman's Bureau of the Knights.
- Were loosely organized without much central direction
- leaders were interested in long-range reform of the economy
- they hoped to replace the "wage system" with a new "cooperative system"
- When Terence v. Powderly took power, the order moved into the open and entered a spectacular period of expansion
- By the late 1886 there were over 70,000 members
- A number of strikes against the railroad were enacted and ended up failing
- The rival party against Kings
- Stands for the American federation of Labor
- Became the most important and enduring labor group in the country
- Rejecting the Knights idea of one big union for everybody, the Federation was an association of essentially autonomous craft unions and represented mainly skilled workers
- Was generally hostile to organizing unskilled workers
- On the whole, the AFL were essentially hostile to the idea of women entering the paid work force
- sought equal pay however for those women who did work and even hired some female organizers to encourage unionization in industries dominated by women
- The AFL concentrated instead on the relationship between labor and management
- It supported the immediate objectives of most workers: better wages, hours, and working conditions
- AFL demanded a national eight-hour day and called for a general strike if workers did not achieve the goal by May 1, 1886