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Railroad Safety
Railroad regulators, workers, and managers began to campaign for better brakes and couplers for freight cars. George Westinghouse modified his passenger train air brake in 1887. Ely Janney developed an automatic car coupler. This improved safety and they began to use it in 1888. In 1889-1890, the just formed Interstate Commerce Commission(ICC) published its first accident stats. In 1893, Congress passed the Safety Appliance Act, mandating such equipment. First federal law to improve work safety. -
Women Workers
Employers hired women to work because they would work for lower wages than men. Some women worked for as small as a pay of $6 per week, which is a pay way smaller than what a man would receive. Most women did unskilled or semi-skilled machine work; though, some did work in labor intensive jobs such as railroads. -
Child Labor
Children worked long hours for low wages. By 1900, 1.7 million children under the age of 16 worked in factories. Less than half of that number of children were employed thirty years before. Many state legislatures passed child labor laws that limited children work hours to 10 hours a day because of the pressure from the public. These laws were disregarded by many employers. In southern cotton mills children who operated looms at the night had cold water thrown in their faces to keep them awake -
Factories
One of the major problems with factory conditions was unsanitary, dangerous, and never produced quality products. Many workers were killed or severely injured, and most of those weren't accidents. They were just "hazards of the workplace." Bosses focused more on how much their workers could get done, over their health and safety. -
Workers
By 1900, industrial accidents killed thirty-five thousand workers every year and maimed five hundred thousand others, with steadily increasing numbers. Only when large scale deaths of workers occurred, did the general public become concerned with woring conditions., such as the many coal-mine explosions or the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911. In one year alone 195 workers in steel and iron mills were killed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. -
American Federation of Labor
The problems concerning workers were long working hours, little or no health benefits, and very little pay for the amount of work they were doing.The American Federation of Labor(AFL) was established to help workers with these problems.They did this by either making it financially possible for them to go on strike by paying them enough money to live on, or giving them year-round health benefits so that it was possible to work their job.75% of all Trade Union members were part of the AFL by 1902. -
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Child Labor Committees
During the period from 1902 to 1915, child labor committees stressed reform through state legislatures. Many laws restricting child labor were passed in this period as part of the progressive reform movement. But the gaps that remained, especially in the southern states, led to a decision to strive for a federal child labor law. These kinds of laws were passed by Congress in 1916 and 1918, but the Supreme Court marked them as unconstitutional. -
Federal Employers' Liability Law
Congress passed a federal employers’ liability law that applied to railroad workers in interstate commerce and acutely limited defenses an employee could claim in 1908.Instead of demanding injured workers to prove the employer was negligent and sue for damages in court, the new law definitely compensated all injuries at a fixed rate.Compensation appealed to businesses: it made costs more predictable and reduced labor strife.To reformers and unions, it promised greater and more certain benefits. -
Bureau of Mines
In 1910 Congress also established the Bureau of Mines in response to a series of disastrous and increasingly frequent explosions. The Bureau was to be a scientific, not a regulatory body and it was intended to discover and disseminate new knowledge on ways to improve mine safety -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers,123 women and 23 men,who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling/jumping to their deaths.The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union,who fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers. -
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