The Labor Movement In The American Workplace

Unions in the American Workplace ¨The number of wage and salary workers belonging to Unions, at 14.8 million in 2017, edged up by 262,000 from 2016 (Bureau of labor statistics). In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the Union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers¨(Bureau of labor statistics). The labor movement has made a big change in the United States. The labor movement started as a protest against poor treatment of workers by corporations and worked to provide people with better working conditions, better wages, workplace safety and reasonable hours. The labor movement was a protest to protect American workers’ rights. To continue the improvements the labor movement has made, workers should support unions. …show more content…
A free wage labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the 18th century. The earliest recorded movement occurred in 1768 when New York tailors protested the wage reduction and wanted better working conditions. The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers (“Labor Movement”). People were not happy with low wages at their jobs. The result, as early labor leaders saw it, was to raise up “two distinct classes, the rich and the poor.”(“Labor Movement”). The rich and poor classes rose up to strike and benefit all workers. Although physical strikes didn’t help the cause of independence, the ideas, such as protection for workers, became part of our American culture (A brief history of