Development of Labor Unions in the United States - Research Paper Example

With the beginning of wage-labor regime, the modern labor movement came into the picture. This project highlights the key issues of the development of labor unions in the United States. The customary chronology report the first American labor strike in 1741. Though they didn’t protest against employers but it was against a municipal regulation regarding the price of bread. The first and second consecutive strike occurred in the year 1786 and 1791 respectively in Philadelphia. The reason of the first was that there should be a minimum wage of six dollars in a week and the second was that there should not be more than ten hours per day.

The first organized strike happened by the Philadelphia shoemakers in 1799 by when it got restructured and renamed as Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers. These strikes over wages were the principal weapon of these primordial labor unions and they were held in peaceful manner. But gradually aggressive, violent trade unionism set in. The industrial depression in America curbed trade unionism for some period to maintain their organizations. Before 1820, several trade unions were involved in the effort to cut short the average working hours from 12 to 10.

When depression reached its ebb in the year 1820, belligerent trade unions again came into existence. They spread among weavers, tailors, cabinet makers and most importantly among factory workers. And that was the first time when female workers came into action. Many strikes happened during 1824-1825 in the industrial houses but the most striking was the Boston House carpenter’s strike for a ten hour day in 1825. Labor Movement of America began in 1827 with mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations in Philadelphia which is called as the first city centered trade organization in the world.

Equal division of all property became prime point in the first workingmen’s meeting in New York in 1829. The first general trades’ union was organized in 1833 in New York which became New York Trades’ Union later. After which during the twenty five year long depression between 1837-1862 the aggressive Trade Unionism vanished (Perlman, 2004, pp. 3-39). The Nation Labor Union (NLU) which formed in the year 1866 persuaded a weak protest to Congress for an 8 hour a day for Federal workers. The Knights of Labor formed in the year 1869 by Uriah Stephens but it flourished rapidly under Terrance Powdery.

Since the membership was open to all types of workers they found easy to achieve a membership of about 750,000 in the next couple of years, but later on the skilled and unskilled workers got fragmented. Suddenly, the Knights found difficult and were unable to handle so much pressure at once, and after taking a hard blow in the Haymarket Square Riots in May 1886 in Chicago, they collapsed completely. Skilled workers became tired of the unskilled workers’ labor activity and thus they were replaced easily by the high skilled one.

The Knights were injured highly by false accusation of anarchistic violence. Even after this they had to face negative publicity and ultimately they were disbanded. The American Federation of Labor was