Labour Movement: A Description of Labor Movement in America (Essay Sample)

LABOR MOVEMENT
Name:
Course:
Date:
Introduction
In America, labor movements began to developing in the nineteenth century as a result of the need for job security and safety of workers. The labor movements were formed to respond to poor working conditions, long working hours as well as low wages that they were being paid. At the beginning of industrial revolution, workers ranging from men, women and children were subjected to work under poor conditions, long working hours and were granted a meager salary. Such conditions are the ones that forced workers to look for ways in which they could improve their working conditions. It was at this juncture that they decided to come together and to have a collective bargain would push their boss to respond to their demands CITATION Jac06 \l 1033 ( Jacobs 2006). The development of labor unions signaled the start of industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was characterized by skilled laborers and high productivity courtesy of introduction of better production methods. The paper, therefore, seeks to analyze the successes as well as the growth of labor movement during the great depression as well as examine why the movement achieved more compared to the previous periods.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Jacobs, James. Mobsters, unions, and feds : the Mafia and the American labor movement. New York: New York University Press, 2006.]
In 1929, the great depression left many of workers jobless, but it helped the American to change their attitudes towards labor movement. Before 1929, most employees in America regarded managers as their leaders of the nation as perceived the leaders of labor unions as very dangerous individuals. However, it was during the depression that people lost faith in the business managers as they did nothing to rescue the situation. Most of the employers were for the idea that to counter the effects of depression; they would need to increase the purchasing power of the employees CITATION Sku09 \l 1033 ( Skurzynski 2009). The political wave tuned from offering support to management to one supporting labor. The effects of depression led to the high unemployment rate in the economy. During this period, the unions started raising wages above the competitive levels. The unions achieved this by imposing a restriction of labor supply to several firms in the industry. Workers went ahead to forming to forming movements that were geared to fighting for the rights of the unskilled laborers.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Skurzynski, Gloria. Sweat and blood : a history of U.S. labor unions. Minneapolis, MN : Twenty-First Century Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc, 2009.]
Initially, the work development started when the National Labor Union succeeded in constraining the number of hours in a workday to eight hours for government representatives; be that as it may, they could not do likewise for private part specialists. In 1914, Congress approved the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 that permitted representatives to strike those they work for them. It was amid the Great Depression when the unions became exceptionally solid under President Roosevelt's New Deal Policy CITATION Bau06 \l 1033 ( Bauder 2006). As the economy deteriorated, participation in unions expanded as laborers searched for occupations and the assurance of those employments through the nearby exchange unions. This history permitted the unions to battle for better wages and more secure working conditions. These endeavors prompted stopping youngster work, if medical advantages, and took into account help to specialists who were harmed at work or were resigned.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Bauder, Harald. Labor movement : how migration regulates labor markets. New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006.]
During the earlier period, that is, the gilded age and the 1920s, workers, did not achieve their goals as compared to the years of depression as a result of several factors. One, most of the employers had assumed the positions of managers as well as the representatives of the business owners. That position implied that they had all the powers at their disposal. They had the power to hire as well as fire at their will without giving a valid reason as to why they have taken such a decision. Additionally, they used to pay wages depending on the law of demand and supply. Further, they were responsible for setting the number of hours that they employees were entitled to work CITATION Ash09 \l 1033 ( Ashby and Hawking 2009). On the other hand, if the employees were not satisfied with such terms, they were free to leave the organization and were not entitled to raise any complaint in the organization. Having granted employers such powers, they were free to manipulate employees by all means. There were no unions during this era to champion for the rights of workers. The employees were not organized, and this made them vulnerable to exploitation by their employers.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Ashby, Steven, and C Hawking. Staley : the fight for a new American labor movement. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2009.]
The workers were unskilled and disorganized and this made them not to be in a position to achieve any goal. Additionally, the workers perceived their employers as national patriots and that they were doing a greater job to their country. Since they were offering jobs to them, they perceived them as important and superior. On the other hand, the union leaders or those individuals who were championing for unity among the workers were seen to be spreading dangerous ideologies to the employees and were dismissed. They were thus not able to achieve their goals because of the division that existed between them in the organization.
Throughout the nineteenth century, as the industry developed and working environments got to be bigger, and representatives' associations with their managers turned out to be less individual, singular laborers lost force. There was little that one specialist could do to weight a huge modern business to expand his wages, minimize his hours, or give better working conditions; laborers who turned out to be excessively requesting. They were likely making it impossible to be let go and replaced by another person sufficiently urgent for an occupation to acknowledge brutal treatment. Substantial migration all through the period always recharged the supply of untalented laborers, making it hard for people to achieve any influence in arrangements with their managers.
In this manner specialists started to grasp the thought of aggregate activity. One specialist may be feeble versus the manufacturing plant supervisor. However, every one of the laborers, acting together, may be sufficiently solid to pick up say in work environment choices. On the off chance that the work development had a signal, then, it was "solidarity." Only joined, joined in a union, would they be able to have any desire for winning concessions from bosses. "'Each for himself' is the managers' request; Union for all will make you free," read an emblem at a nineteenth-century Detroit work parade CITATION McN08 \l 1033 ( McNeese 2008). The best approach to make solidarity, to manage the business as a unified body, was to sort out—to join specialists in some sort of formal affiliation. Sorting out turne...