Section 3 Organized Labor

Preview

Objectives

After studying this section you will be able to:

1. Describe why historically some American workers have joined labor unions.
2. Trace the history of the labor movement in the United States.
3. Analyze reasons for the decline of the labor movement.
4. Explain how labor and management negotiate contracts.

Section Focus

Historically, American workers have tried to gain some control over their working conditions by joining together in labor unions. Labor unions rose to great power and economic influence in the mid-1900s, but have declined since then.

Key Terms

• strike
• right-to-work law
• blue-collar worker
• white-collar worker
• collective bargaining
• mediation
• arbitration

In 1998, United Auto Workers in Flint, Michigan, went on strike against General Motors to force the company to address “unresolved health and safety, subcontracting and production standards issues.”

Today we think of Labor Day as the traditional end of the summer, a time for picnicking and perhaps shopping for school supplies. You might not know that the holiday has its roots in 1882, when labor leader Peter J. McGuire suggested a day celebrating the American worker. On September 5, 1882, some 10,000 workers took to the streets of New York City in a parade sponsored by a labor group called the Knights of Labor. The Knights later proposed making the first Monday in September a Labor Day holiday. The idea caught on quickly. In 1894, Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday.

Labor and Labor Unions

As you read in Section 2, wages are determined by the forces of supply and demand. Competition among firms keeps a worker's wages close to his or her level of productivity. In general, workers who command the highest wages are workers with specialized skills and who are in short supply—brain surgeons, for example.

What if, however, an individual employee feels that he or she is being paid too little, working too many hours, or working under unsafe conditions? One option is for the worker to quit his or her current job and find an employer who offers better wages and working conditions. Many economists, in fact, argue that it is a competitive labor market that helps prevent low pay and dangerous working conditions because workers will leave such firms to work elsewhere.

Historically, American workers have also tried to gain some control over their working conditions by joining together to bring their concerns to the attention of company management. Today, only about one out of seven workers in the United States belongs to a labor union. However, this number does not accurately reflect the strong influence that unions have had on the nation's economy in the past. In order to understand the role of labor unions today, we will look at how labor unions rose to power in the United States.

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