Labor Union Movement In America

12 Pages 2893 Words

he "host" group at the Boston Tea Party in 1773. The Continental Congress met in Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia, and there the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

In 1792, The Philadelphia Cordswainers formed a local trade union in order to negotiate for higher wages. In "pursuit of happiness" through shorter hours and higher pay, the Journeymen Printers were the first to go on strike, in New York in 1794; cabinet makers struck in 1796; carpenters in Philadelphia in 1797; cordwainers in 1799. In the early years of the 19th century, recorded efforts by unions to improve the workers' conditions, through either negotiation or strike action, became more frequent.


These are prime examples of the craftspeople who developed the first labor unions in America, post American Revolution. These trade societies grew out of necessity, as volume of goods produced increase. This caused a huge separation between employer and employee. The increase in competition made the price a consumer was willing to pay decrease. To increase their profits, employers had to decrease their cost. To accomplish this, employers would reduce wages. Workers decided to group together to stop this from happening and committed to working only for the wage they believed to be fair. Thus, a labor union was formed. At the same time, the merchant owners/employers moved away from hands-on production, thus, the merchant –capitalist was born. Expanded workplaces were developed, and the number of workplaces increased.

By the 1820s, various unions involved in the effort to reduce the working day from 12 to 10 hours began to show interest in the idea of federation-of joining together in pursuit of common objectives for working people. As ineffective as these first efforts to organize may have been, they reflected the need of working people for economic and legal protection from exploiting employers. The invention of the steam engine and the growing us...