Idaho Social Studies 6-12.US1.52
The Standard
Explain the impact of labor unions and strikes on labor-management relations.
Idaho Content Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Growth of Industrial World 1877-1890 (Bridge with US History II)
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how unions let workers bargain together over pay and hours. They use the 1877 railroad strike to show how a walkout pressured employers and how the response affected future talks.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can trace a wage cut to a walkout, stopped trains, and a response from railroad companies. They can explain that workers gained bargaining power, but conflict did not always lead to an agreement.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think every strike won higher pay, or that joining a union and going on strike are the same thing. They may think railroad managers sent in troops, when government officials made that decision.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Railroad workers walked out over wage cuts in 1877. Name one choice managers faced and explain how their response could affect future talks with workers.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs wage-cut, walkout, train shutdown, and government troop cards; have them arrange a cause-and-effect chain for the 1877 railroad strike.
Ask: When rail workers stopped trains over wage cuts, which manager response might make future talks harder, and why?
Run a bargaining game with wage-cut, strike, and replacement-worker cards; pairs record how each move changes both sides' options.
Give students a recent transit strike article; have them highlight worker demands and management's reply, then compare them with the 1877 strike.
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