Labor and Labor Practices
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 995-1002 |
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The role of labor organizations in modern U.S. industrialized society has its roots in the European merchant and craft guilds of the Middle Ages. The guilds were associations of people with common interests, usually setting prices and quality standards for their goods and wage rates for their employees. The guilds grew to have considerable political power before eventually dying out by the seventeenth century.
Early efforts in the United States for employees to organize into organizations seeking better pay, fewer working hours, and improved working conditions met with fierce opposition. Labor organizers were often considered criminals. This early conflict between employers and unions shaped labor law and labor relations throughout U.S. history.
Early organized labor actions in the United States included efforts by Philadelphia shoemakers in 1792 to improve their work conditions. Their actions met with little success as their organization was ruled illegal by a Pennsylvania court. Unions were considered illegal conspiracies. President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) even sent U.S. troops in 1834 to break up a strike by canal construction workers in Ohio. A strike by employees is an organized refusal to work. Jackson claimed the strike
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interfered with interstate commerce (trade across state lines) by threatening not to complete the canal construction. Finally, in 1842 a Massachusetts court recognized a worker's right to strike and that unions were legally valid organizations, the first such ruling in the nation.
Labor organizations began to appear in the mid-nineteenth century. Skilled laborers were the first to organize with the railroad workers leading the way. Railroad workers held a particular edge in that they could potentially cause large scale economic disruptions.
Following the American Civil War (1861–1865) industrialization (growth of large manufacturers) expanded rapidly. Rapid changes in technology spurred the growth of capitalism (an economic system in which businesses are privately owned and operated for profit) in which the newly emerging large corporations were much more concerned with profits than employee comfort and safety. As a resul, interest in labor unions grew. In 1869, the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor became one of the first national labor organizations. The eight-hour work day and restrictions on child labor were two of its objectives.
Many still considered unions as obstacles to capitalism and, therefore, un-American. Translating new Darwinian theories of biological evolution to society in general, many believed in a social version of survival of fittest. Those persons who did not prosper on their own initiative were obviously deficient in character and should not be aided by organized groups. A laissez-faire economic system which was based on freedom from of governmental or labor union interference was considered most desirable for economic success. The unhampered marketplace was to dictate business success and workers were to perform based on the market needs. In the factories and sweatshops twelve hour workdays and six-day workweeks were common with wages barely at subsistence levels. Working conditions were dangerous and unsanitary. Death and injury were common in industrial accidents.
By the 1880s European immigration escalated providing an increased labor force for the industrialists. Unskilled workers and their families living in crowded slums became common. Support for social reform grew more and the public began to push for protective legislation. Confrontations between laborers and their employers and police began to turn violent in the late 1870s continuing in a series of strikes through the
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1880s. Federal troops were called to stop one strike. Finally, police killed dozens of strikers in a 1894 incident. Public acceptance of unions decreased with each incident. In addition, discrimination against the immigrants was prevalent. Typical of the labor movement in general, the Knights of Labor declined, disappearing by 1900.
Two notable developments during this period were the formation of...
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