In the first history lecture of the new school year, my professor made an interesting claim to introduce the class: history doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes.
It didn’t take me long to scribble down in a small notebook I carry with me everywhere, one where I store thoughts, stories, pieces of dialogue, and more. Looking back through the notebook later in the semester, I came across that little gem.
I spent some time pondering how true the phrase was. I mean, any event in history would never be the same as any regular coffee in the morning. It’s easy to think just off the top of my head about how many common events were talked about in history classes: the World Wars, the Spanish Influenza, and more. But ultimately, this phrase could be true because many themes, patterns, and outcomes are similar throughout history but often come in unexpected ways.
I thought for a while that the Spanish Influenza was somehow a mystical superstition because it occurred almost exactly 100 years after the last major pandemic. Those types of events really make someone wonder if we really are in a simulation or not. Part of that thought so long ago still makes me laugh.
While sometimes we may have these thoughts, it is important to study the correlations between history because it can still help us recognize issues that are widespread in today's world.
For example, recently, the central topic discussed in my classes has been covering the history of industrialization in America. This follows lots of developments in technology, the availability of jobs, and studying conflicts during that time.
The rapid development of production ended up creating many jobs in a variety of industries, such as textiles, steel, and railroads. These jobs provided many opportunities for people to move westward and for immigrants entering the United States. This overall boosted the economy, but at what cost to the working class?
To challenge this idea is to take on many perspectives from those whose stories are often forgotten. The working class can be compared to a stealthy bead of sweat that often gets wiped away in the blink of an eye.
At the height of the industrialization industry, the railroads became the birthplace for creating jobs, increased immigration rates, and created horrendous working conditions. While there is a significant disparity between the good and the bad, the good was built off at the expense of the working class. These workers suffered through long work days, dangerous conditions with machinery, and low pay rates that had people on the brink of poverty. Railroads were considered the heart and soul of America, connecting cities to urban areas, allowing ease when sharing ideas, and connecting people with each other. And when the railroads came to a halt, there was a major upheaval.
These working conditions pushed workers to the brink, ending up starting one of the most pivotal moments in history that transformed the labor conflict in the United States: The Great Railroad Strike.
In 1877, tensions began to rise when railroad companies in Baltimore and Ohio began to slash workers’ wages by 10% because of the stagnant economy. On top of the already strained working conditions, the decrease in wages put workers over the edge.
Railroads halted, and as a result, people stopped working and started to retaliate in various ways. Some protested peacefully, while others ended up forming strikes, riots, and more. Railroad property was destroyed to further damage the railroads, so the military would not be able to reopen the rails.
The violence that ensued among the workers encouraged the military to step in. The governor of Maryland deployed a militia during the riots to control mass protests and in hopes of reopening the railroads.
Furthermore, the conflicts ended up pushing for labor unions to form, such as the Knights of Labor, open to any person of any craft to join to establish more concrete workers' rights in the law and advocate for human rights.
Overall, it is said that workers ended up destroying over 40 million dollars in railroad property and pushed businesses to enable protections for workers to increase pay, instill an eight-hour work day, and establish paid vacation.
While the struggle for workers' rights has improved over the years, it still occurs today. The working class still becomes overlooked, mistreated, and struggles to make ends meet in the height of inflation.
The most widely known strike to occur just this year is the Writers Strike. A labor union that is widely known to represent writers is the Writers Guild of America (WGA). The organization became the voice for writers in a time when writers were being asked to complete way more work way above their pay grade, oftentimes the minimum wage or below it.
As a writer myself, it is an art that takes many trials, time, and immense discipline.
With this in mind, it is important to recognize that the main cause of these strikes is that writers began asking for compensation for their work when streaming services can make millions based on just the number of views. While the writers only get paid per episode they write, if the season only has 8–13 episodes, that isn’t very much.
On the list of growing demands, writers asked studios to develop more structural compensation for screenwriting, whether or not based on how the story is produced thematically or into a movie.
It is important to note that the longer the strikes occur, the longer popular TV shows, movies, and plays halt altogether. When stories are prevented from being told, the world suffers.
Almost six months later, after endless protests and contracts being argued and developed, the WGA and the studios finally came to the conclusion of developing a three-year-long contract that gains protections for writers, setting minimum staffing requirements for works for television so that writers don’t become overworked, increasing pay and having some pay related to the success of the titles that perform well on streaming platforms, and setting structures in place for health pension funds.
In the end, we can look at both labor conflicts and see that while they are both completely different, happening in completely different periods, there are parallels to both events.
We can see the blood, sweat, and tears these people put into their livelihoods, and even still, they were never seen by the bigger corporations as human beings until they fought back.
It was when things were made inconvenient for the big money makers that it grabbed people's attention for change. The Great Railroad Strike made individuals protest by not showing up for work, destroying railroad property, and marching in the streets; in turn, it halted transportation altogether. Whereas for the Writers Strike, people also protested by refusing to show up to work and marching, which also paused the entertainment industry together.
It is only when inconvenience strikes that people truly listen.
Work Cited
Chapters, All. 16. Capital and Labor | THE AMERICAN YAWP. 7 June 2013, www.americanyawp.com/text/16-capital-and-labor.
A History of WGA Contract Negotiations and Gains. www.wga.org/the-guild/about-us/history/a-history-of-wga-contract-negotiations-and-gains.
Koblin, John, and Brooks Barnes. “2023 Writers Guild of America Strike: What You Need to Know.” The New York Times, 27 Sept. 2023, www.nytimes.com/article/wga-writers-strike-hollywood.html.
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