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Labor Unions Essay, Research Paper

Labor Unions

GROWTH OF THE FACTORY

In colonial America, most of the manufacturing was done by hand in a home. Labor

took place in workshops attached to the side of a home. As towns grew into

cities, the demand for manufactured goods increased. Some workshop owners began

hiring helpers to increase production. Relations between the employer and helper

were generally harmonious. They worked side by side, had the same interests and

held similar political views.

The factory system that began around the mid 1800’s brought great changes. The

employers no longer worked beside their employees. They became executives and

merchants who rarely saw their workers. They were less concerned with their

welfare than with the cost of their labor. Many workers were angry about the

changes brought by the factory system. In the past, they had taken great pride

in their handicraft skills, and now machines did most of the work, and they were

reduced from the status of craft workers to common laborers. The were also

replaced by workers who would accept lower wages. The Industrial Revolution

meant degradation rather than progress.

As the factory system grew, many workers began to form labor unions to protect

their interests. The first union to hold regular meetings and collect dues was

organized by Philadelphia shoemakers in 1792. Soon after, carpenters and

leather workers in Boston and printers in New York also organized unions.

Labor’s tactics in those early times were simple. Members of a union would

agree on the wages they thought were fair. They pledged to stop working for

employers who would not pay that amount. They also sought to compel employers

to hire only union members.

CONSPIRACY LAWS

Employers found the courts to be an effective weapon to protect their interests.

In 1806, eight Philadelphia shoemakers were brought to trial after leading an

unsuccessful strike. The court ruled that any organizing of workers to raise

wages was an illegal act. Unions were “conspiracies” against employers and the

community. In later cases, courts ruled that almost any action taken by unions

to increase wages might be criminal. These decisions destroyed the

effectiveness of the nation’s early labor unions.

Not until 1842 was the way opened again for workers to organize. That year

several union shoemakers in Boston were brought to trial. They were charged

with refusing to work with non-union shoemakers. A municipal court judge found

the men guilty of conspiracy. But an appeal to a higher court resulted in a

victory for labor unions generally. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that it was

not unlawful for workers to engage peacefully in union activity. It was their

right to organize, he said. Shaw’s decision was widely accepted. For many years

following this decision, unions did not have to fear conspiracy charges.

UNION STRUGGLES

In the next two decades, unions campaigned for a 10-hour working day and against

child labor. A number of state legislatures responded favorably. In 1851, for

example, New Jersey passed a law calling for a 10-hour working day in all

factories. It also forbade the employment of children under 10 years old.

Meanwhile trade unions were joining together in cities to form federations. A

number of skilled trades organized national unions to try to improve their

wages and working conditions. The effort to increase wages brought about

hundreds of strikes during the 1850s. None was as extensive, however, as a

strike of New England shoemakers in 1860. The strike started in Lynn,

Massachusetts, when factory workers were refused a three-dollar increase in

their weekly pay. It soon spread to Maine and New Hampshire. Altogether, about

20,000 workers took part in the strike. It ended in a victory for the

shoemakers. Similar victories were soon won by other trade unions. These

successes led to big increases in union membership. Yet most American workers

were generally better off than workers in Europe and had more hope of improving

their lives. For this reason, the majority did not join labor unions.

In the years following the Civil War (1861-1865), the United States was

transformed by the enormous growth of industry. Once the United States was

mainly a nation of small farms. By 1900, it was a nation of growing cities, of

coal and steel, of engines and fast communications. Though living standards

generally rose, millions of industrial workers lived in crowded, unsanitary

slums. Their conditions became desperate in times of business depressions. Then

it was not unusual for workers to go on strike and battle their employers.

Between 1865 and 1900, industrial violence occurred on numerous occasions.

Probably the most violent confrontation between labor and employers was the

Great Railway Strike of 1877. The nation had been in the grip of a severe

depression for four years. During that time, the railroads had decreased the

wages of railway workers by 20 percent. Many trainmen complained that they

could not support their families adequately. There was little that the trainmen

could do about the wage decreases. At that time, unions were weak and workers

feared going on strike; there were too many unemployed men who might take their

jobs. Yet some workers secretly formed a Trainmen’s Union to oppose the

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