Working conditions in the late nineteenth century were brutal for both skilled and unskilled workers. Unskilled laborers, on average worked 59 hours per week, women and children working in sweatshops for fewer wages than men. Unskilled laborers were usually the first to have their wages cut during a depression along with having the most dangerous occupations due to lack of government safety regulations. Union started to organize to be a voice for both skilled and unskilled workers. Unions rose and fell with the greatest culmination of labor’s response to unfettered capitalism in the show of violence occurring in 1892 during the Homestead Strike. The largest craft union, Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers were going into negotiations
