Chicago’s Role in the Development of the Labor Movement

A hallmark in the history of Chicago is the rise of the labor movement in the U.S., paving the way for the formation of unions, the campaign for the eight-hour workday, and safer food preparation and working conditions. Learn more online and at the SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2024 about the city’s connection to workers’ rights and safety:

• In 1894, the first national labor strike in U.S. history occurred after the Chicago-based railroad company Pullman Co. reduced wages and laid off workers without lowering their rent in the company town the workers called home. Within two months, 125,000 workers joined the Pullman Strike, which escalated into violence. Eventually, the strike came to an end, and workers were rehired under the promise they’d never strike again. This event was the origin of Labor Day, with then-President Grover Cleveland introducing the holiday in 1894 to placate members of the wider labor movement.
• Chicago was an epicenter in the fight for the eight-hour workday, which began in the late 1800s and lasted until the early 1900s. The Haymarket Affair was a famous event in that struggle. A violent confrontation between Chicago’s striking workers and city police occurred in Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886, with more than a dozen police officers and civilians killed. About 100 people were wounded. Labor leaders called “the Chicago Eight” were tried and convicted for conspiring to aid assailants. Four were hanged, one took his own life, but the other three were later granted pardons by the Illinois governor, who believed their trial was unfair. Reacting to the violence of the event, many local labor members switched allegiance from the Knights of Labor, believed to be the instigators of the riot, to the American Federation of Labor. Consider a visit to this historic site to see a memorial statue and learn more about the event that inspired union supporters around the world to begin celebrating May 1 as International Workers’ Day.  
  
• In 1905, novelist Upton Sinclair published his novel The Jungle, an exposé of the poor working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. His writing detailed the dangers of working in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the unlivable conditions in which the employees resided. Public outrage following the novel’s release prompted the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, which improved the working conditions of food production employees and prohibited unsanitary practices in these workplaces.
  

Nick Ferrara is a SHRM staffer.