Labor Union Movement In America

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The Labor Union Movement in America

This history of the Labor Union Movement in the United States is the story of people who sought to find balance between the needs of employers and the needs of employees.4

The roots of American Labor Unions extend deep into the early history of America. Several of the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were working craftsmen. Captain John Smith, who led the ill-fated settlement in 1607 on Virginia's James River, pleaded with his sponsors in London to send him more craftsmen and working people. In prerevolutionary America, 90% of the population lived in rural areas. The main occupations in these areas were as farm owners, tenants, and hired hands. These agricultural workers were supported by craftsmen and unsilled laborers. As demand for skilled craftsman and their wares increased,a master worker would set up a retail shop and employ apprentices. Before their were unions, master workers joined together to form and maintain monopolies.

The original craftsman in America were immigrants who paid their way to the New World and passed their trades on their children. ‘they were free laborers. As demand for more skilled workers increased, the London Company recruited individuals to become indentured servants in Colonial America by. They recruited prisoners, homeless, and unemployed migrants, and transported them to the US. At the end of their indentured period, they had learned a skill they could market. Most of these indviduals were very willing to leave northern Euorpe’s declining economic state, and receive a free ride to America, the opportunity to learn a skill, and a fresh start.

The first unions, or guilds, of carpenters and cordwainers, cabinet makers and cobblers appeared, often temporarily, in cities along the Atlantic seaboard of colonial America. Laborers played a significant role in the struggle for independence; carpenters disguised as Mohawk Indians were t...