American Federationist Chart

American Federationist

The labor movement, indeed, has served as a force for American progress.The labor movement has played a very important role in the elevation of American economy and American progress.


Through these decades, the labor movement has constantly reached out to groups in the American society striving for their share of opportunity and rewards..... to the blacks, the Hispanics and other minorities..... to women striving for jobs and equal or comparable pay . . . to those who work for better schools, for the freedom of speech, press and assembly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights ... to those seeking to make our cities more livable or our rural recreation areas more available . . . to those seeking better health for infants and more secure status for the elderly..The labor movement has helped the minorities including the blacks, the Hispanics, and women who needed job and financial support.It has provided better jobs and working conditions for minor groups and given them equal rights and treatment.


Yet through this dizzying process of change, one need remains constant-the need for individual employees to enjoy their human rights and dignity, and to have the power to band together to achieve equal collective status in dealing with multi-million and multi-billion dollar corporations.The labor union has given workers and employers equal rights and power.Both employers and employees deserve rights and dignity.They need equality in order to maximize the profit of their corporations.


The leadership of the early labor movement showed a keen awareness that the unions could not succeed with a men only philosophy, even though men were then the clearly dominant element in the labor force.Men only cannot help a corporation succeed. Skills, management system, and relationships between employers and employees are also necessary for a corporation.


Thus the decade of the 1890s and the early years of the 20th century witnessed many intense struggles between essentially weak unions seeking to liberate their members from back-breaking toil under often unsafe and unhealthy working conditions for very low wages, and powerful corporations with heavy financial resources, the active or passive support of the government and its police forces, and the backing of much of the press and the general public. It was a perfect climate for union-busting and violence.In the decade of the 1890s and the early 20thcentury, workers often worked in a very unsafe and unhealthy working condition. Even so, the employers paid very low wages.Powerful corporations also sought support from the government and the police forces to back them up.The employees were abused.


A noteworthy event in the labor movement of the early 1900s was the creation of the Womens Trade Union League, to help educate women workers about the advantages of union membership, to support their demands for better working conditions, and to acquaint the public with the serious exploitation of the rising number of women workers, many of them in home industries or industrial sweatshops.The labor movement also reached out to educated women.Women took advantage of good working conditions, better job opportunities, and union memberships.


It was founded by Mary O'Sullivan, a bindery worker who became the first woman organizer employed by the AFL; Jane Addams, the noted social worker and founder of Chicago's Hull House; Mary Kehew, a Boston philanthropist, and women who were officials in the unions of the garment and textile industries. Women had made great achievement with the help of the labor unions.More and more women went to work and took the responsibilities of both career and family.They had shown that gender does not affect their talents, skills and determination.


Throughout the decade, unemployment rose, quietly, almost anonymously. It was a time of considerable hardship for many of the unemployed, long before the days of unemployment insurance or supplementary benefits.Unemployment rate rose. People were losing jobs, starving, and struggling finding a way to survive.People needed help. They need jobs.


Business enterprises failed by the thousands, production plummeted, unemployment went through the roof.Enterprises failed. Employees lost their jobs.


A major phenomenon of this period was the rapid growth of unions of government employees-federal, state and local. For many decades, postal employees, teachers, the fire fighters, and building and metal trades workers in some federal installations represented about the only substantially unionized part of public sector employment.Unions grew rapidly because it actually worked. Both employers and employees had been benefited from the labor unions.


The words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. illustrate the common bonds among labor, blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups: "Our needs are identical with labor's needs-decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community." Labor Unions provided minorities needs and hope like the spirit of utopia of modernism.


The increasing interest in safety on the job, heightened by the introduction of new and potentially dangerous materials used in a wide variety of industries, gave rise to labor's intensive support for a federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, which became law in 1970. Specifically, the act authorized the Secretary of Labor to establish health and safety standards, to enforce them, and to listen to employees' legitimate complaints about conditions at the workplace. Working conditions were improved. Safety standards were established to protect workers and their rights.


Recognition that workers have interests as consumers as well as producers has been apparent in the labor movement for many decades. Unions have played an active role in the formation of consumer cooperatives, and at both national and local levels have worked with other citizen groups for the enactment of various forms of consumer protection legislation. At the same time unions have voiced concern that apparent "bargains" of goods imported from low-wage countries may in fact be of inferior quality or workmanship and thus, in the long run, more expensive for the consumer. In recent years, there has been a vast increase in imported manufactured goods-often produced by corporations directly or indirectly related to American conglomerate companies-and the AFL-CIO has called for a revitalization of American manufacturing industries. Not only workers rights were protected, but also were consumers rights.


The strengthening of free unions throughout the world is another ongoing objective of the AFL-CIO. Special agencies functioning within the framework of the AFL-CIO carry out many of labor's efforts to move toward this goal, which was constantly expressed by George Meany: to build strong, free, noncommunist unions in the democratic societies of the free world and to resist all forms of tyranny and political repression. In fact, resistance to domination of workers and their organizations by governments or by political parties, or the control of unions by right-wing or left-wing extremist groups, has been a constant theme of American labor during the entire post-war period. No more tyranny or domination of workers. Unions brought democracy to workers and employers which is exactly what modernism advocates.


As the federal government broadened its range of social and economic programs from the 1930s onward, trade Union interests also expanded. To meet its responsibilities to its members and as "the people's lobby," the AFL-CIO maintains a staff of experienced professionals in the fields of law, education, legislation, research, social and community services, civil rights and allied disciplines. It was called the peoples lobby for a reason. AFL-CIO had professionals in all fields in order to help everyone out. It is all for the rights of workers in all fields.


On the Farm: Workers Seek Equality The generally unenviable plight of agricultural workers has for many decades been a thorn in the American social conscience. Large numbers of migrant farm workers-most of them blacks or Hispanics from the South and the Southwest, as well as workers who have entered the country either on temporary work passes or illegally from the Caribbean and Mexico-have been excluded from the legal protections afforded to most workers in industry and commerce. Farmers were the forgotten people. However unions stepped out and helped these excluded people who suffered from low pay, lack of decent living standards and bad working conditions.

Buildings Guide

Strength in numbers is a clear advantage to union representation. A union will give a member bargaining power in the form of a group that any one individual will not be able to match if he/she attempted to bargain alone. Unions have professional negotiators who are cognizant of all issues that can be bargained for. Unions were huge in numbers which gave them advantage of many professionals in all kinds of fields. A well working system brought them efficiency and gave its members rights.

Buildings Guide

A contract that provides for certain rights and obligations on behalf of the employee. Employees without a union are often referred to as At-Will Employees. The term means that the employer can end the relationship at virtually anytime and without any cause being given. A contract will provide a grievance and arbitration procedure in the event of an adverse employer action. Unions were all for workers. They tried to create a well functioned system with no conflict among workers, employer and corporations.

Buildings Guide

Higher Wages many contend that a union will provide for an increase in pay to be seen in a very short time. This includes extra pay forholidayand overtime. Increase in pay gave people better living standards.

Buildings Guide

Increase number of benefits such as paid time off for vacation time, sick time and other paid time off for personal or family time. Additionally,medicaland dental benefits are often improved by negotiations conducted by unions. Benefits for workers were also given. The labor union was trying to build a utopia among employees and employers.

Buildings Guide

Increased job security. Unions will make sure a fair process is followed by the employer seeking to terminate or suspend an employee. Seniority rights are also protected by many unions. Job security was also increased which made jobs stabled and gave people guaranteed wages.

Buildings Guide

Unions are too political Unions provide a lot ofmoneyto political candidates they believe are sympathetic to union views. Many employees do not share these same views and believe that their hard earned money should not be spent in this manner. They were too political. The unions always seek help from a political party.

Buildings Guide

Union fees can be excessive and some employees do not believe that the return on the investment is worth the expense. Many seebusinessas paying acceptable wages with attractive benefits programs and thus there is no need to seek union representation. Workers still do not have a strong faith in the unions. The workers wanted returns that were worth union fees.

Buildings Guide

Unions are corrupt. Many view unions as corrupt organizations that are only interested in the collection of fees and not representing the interests of the members. Some unions have been tied to organized crime membership. Scandals have been reported involving the misallocation of union dues. They doubted that the unions only wanted money and were scared that the unions would not do anything after they collected the fees.

Buildings Guide

Independence and freedom to innovate. Unions like to establish rules that are primarily aimed at protecting certain employee rights. For example, most unions support seniority when it comes to layoffs and terminations. There are some employees who view this as not in their own bestinterestand short sighted. Freedom and independence is the ideal of the unions. It is also the ideal of modernism.

Buildings Guide

Unions drive up costs for businesses and eventually force businesses out of business due to lack of appropriate economic resources. Contracts are negotiated to make the union look good in the short term and do not take into account the long term interests of the employee being tied to the sustainability of the business as a whole. Businesses still lack of basic economic resources which drove businesses out.

Kessler-Harris

Examining a range of judicial decisions and legislative debate, Kessler-Harris reveals that the law envisioned men as primary breadwinners supporting families, and that their rights to work were central to maintaining their masculine sense of independence and autonomy. Conversely, the law viewed women as wives and mothers; their economic rights, such that they were, consisted of a right to be supported by a male breadwinner and protected by the state from any harm to or interference in that role by employment. Women had no rights to work. The only roles of women were wives and moms. They had no economic rights. They relied on men and their families.

Kessler-Harris

With this achievement, Kessler-Harris argues, women came closer than ever before to reaching "economic citizenship" on par with men. With legal backing and enforcement from the initially reluctant Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, women now approached "the achievement of an independent and relatively autonomous status that mark[ed] self-respect and provide[d] access to the full play of power and influence that define[d] participation. Women gained economic rights, power, independence, and equal job opportunities.

Kessler-Harris

But in reality, of course, women still had to struggle to balance work with family obligations: most worked a "second shift" at home. The women who were best able to benefit from the new anti-discrimination laws were women who could afford to privately pay for their family obligations. Middle-class and well-paid working-class women, especially those who were married, tended to have the resources and supports--funding for childcare or networks of family--to take advantage of new work opportunities. Women took advantages of new jobs. They are not second shifts at home anymore. They gained support, resources and better life standards.

Kessler-Harris

For many Americans today, even those of the married middle class, the decision to work may well be a matter of necessity (albeit relative) rather than choice. The "right" to work is just as much an obligation to work, especially for the poor. Though this route to economic citizenship has brought employment-based benefits such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and fair legal protections on the job to many, it has made the ability the care for family, home and community more difficult for most. Necessity rather than choice. Jobs brought women protection and benefits. Women cared less for families and communities. They still had to learn to balance work and other things at once.

Kessler-Harris

Through these decades, in addition, the unions of America have functioned in an economy and a technology marked by awesome change. When the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions gathered in convention in 1881, Edison had two years earlier invented the electric light, and the first telephone conversation had taken place just five years before. There were no autos, no airplanes, no radio, no television, no air conditioning, no computers or calculators, no electronic games. For our modest energy needs-coal, kerosene and candies-we were independently self-sufficient. New technologies were founded. The unions functioned to bring the stability of economy in the nation.

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American Federationist Chart