...Good evening everyone, I came here tonight prepared to speak with you all about American Labor Union History going back to the Eighteenth Century. Due to time restraints, I am now being asked to give you the top three most important events in American Labor Union History. There have been so many significant events, picking the three most important is a very difficult task. However, I will rise to the occasion and give you lovely folks what I believe to be the three most important events in American Labor Union History. The three I will speak briefly about are; the formation of The Knights of Labor in 1885, The Wagner Act of 1935, and the merger between AFL and the CIO creating the AFL-CIO in 1955. The foundation of The Knights of Labor is especially significant because this was the first time in American Labor Union History that there was an attempt to form one large general union. The early years of The Knights of Labor were very successful. This union offered membership to skilled and non-skilled workers as well as women and African Americans. Between 1885 and 1886 nearly 600,000 members joined under leader Terence Powderly seeking eight hour work days, equal pay, and to do away with child labor. The Knights won a major strike against the Wabash Railroad which led to the quick increase in membership. However, by the late 1880’s the organization was practically extinct due to lack of leadership for such an overwhelming quick increase in membership . The Wagner Act...
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...The Knights of Labor were founded in 1869. Under the leadership of Terence Powderly it became a public assembly of union workers and grew to numbers of about seven hundred thousand. The American Federation of labor began as the Knights of Labor ended and became a larger group than the Knights of Labor. The American Federation of Labor were a mostly white, male group of union workers (Zinn, 1999). The leader of the American Federation of Labor was Samuel F. Gompers. The American Federation of Labor had a large number of participation at almost two million in its peak years; however they still only accounted for a small portion of all workers in the industrial field. It was groups like the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor...
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...Abstract In this paper will examine the use of underage labor by foreign companies and what relationships US companies have with these companies. I will discuss the laws concerning child labor in different countries and how they compare to the US laws. I will inspect the US corporations that use facilities in other countries and if these facilities utilize child labor in their production processes. I will also look at the benefits to using child labor and what if any benefits the children get from the companies who employee them. Finally I will observe whether or not US corporations violate any laws by having partnerships with these oversea companies that utilize child labor, and if they have an ethical responsibility to terminate these partnerships if child labor is used by their oversea partners. Child labor is defined as any employment that harms children’s health or stops children from attending school. The International Labor Organization believes that 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 works under conditions that is illegal, hazardous, or exploitative throughout the world (Child Labor Public Education Project, 2012). Children have been used throughout American history. American farmers, for example, have used their own children to help with jobs on the farms for many years. But as people moved away from the farmlands and into manufacturing areas, some of these companies began to hire children to work for them. Children worked in mines, glass...
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...Do you think that unfree labor, plays a big role do in the Colonial American society? I do think it does play a big role. I think that unfree labor is very unfair because each one is working for a different reason. I have seven different reasons why slaves have to work. The African slaves started replacing the whites, due to a lack of whites, and to avoid class conflict. The first two categories I am going to talk about are serfdom and chattel slavery. Serfdom is the “dominate class in feudal society” this means the slaves were property of someone else. Chattel slavery is the slaves were considered poperty of that owner their employ are acknowledged by their owner. Chattel slavery is the normal type of slavery and was the most common. The...
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...American Labor Movement Labor unions began to develop in America in the nineteenth century because of the need for better safety and job security for workers. Workers formed labor unions in response to dangerous working conditions, low wages, and long hours. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, men, women, and even children worked in unsafe factories for ten to twelve hours daily for a meager pay. These harsh conditions forced workers to look for ways to improve their situation. They eventually learned that by banding together and bargaining as a group, they could pressure employers to respond to their demands. The development of labor unions follows the development of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution brought about skilled laborers and a huge increase in production, thanks to a better production system. The new factory system brought workers both steady employment in good economic times and bad working conditions and unemployment during depressions. Consequently, the Industrial Revolution changed the American class structure, turning skilled tradesmen into the working class, who found it very difficult to escape factory work. Printers, carpenters, tailors, and weavers formed local craft unions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Their main objective was to maintain craft standards, to prevent employers from hiring unskilled workers and immigrant labor. The largest labor organizations emerged between 1866 and 1936. The National Labor...
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...organization appealing. This need of job safety for employees was put into the contract. Individuals wanted to be protected against arbitrary, danger and threat. For this reason the union has given assurance to the people. Social needs are also an important motivator for workers to join the union. People have found interacting with others like themselves and can relate to them comforting. Unions have also sponsored activities such as retreats, athletic and adult educational programs for members only. Thus, in order to participate, you have to be a member. Some individuals join through social pressure. As a worker explained, “ I can’t think of a good reason except everybody else was in it”., in the textbook Arthur A Sloane and Fred Witney “Labor Relations” 13th edition. Lastly, other workers explained their union membership is based on that they would have a direct voice. They want the opportunity to retain and gain a position of higher authority within the union. With knowing they protected they participate...
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...against their will. Additionally, in South Haven, Michigan State, companies such as Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company have children as young as five years old working in their blueberry fields (Patel, Hill, Eslocker, & Ross, 2009). Chemicals and pesticides used in these fields are toxic to the workers causing serious respiratory and carcinogenic diseases. Unfortunately, most of these cases go unreported. However, over the years after outcries by human activists and other human rights organizations who are against this kind of labor force, law enforcement officials have worked tirelessly over the last couple of years to free thousands of ‘slaves’ and prosecute those involved in this outrageous crime against humanity. Some of those who found themselves in these unkind working conditions had come seeking better lives for themselves and their families while others were ‘sold’ into slavery. Ironically, most Americans know and ponder over child labor as a problem everywhere else except in America, and shamelessly I fall into that category. How much of a problem is sex trafficking in Charlotte, North Carolina and does this surprise you? Have you seen evidence of this issue or heard about it? Explain the story of Janet; why did she and so many other women end up on these farms...
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...the United States. Many had come in the hopes of improving their economic conditions, and their arrival was initially welcomed due to labor shortages. According to information from the U.S. Census, the Chinese population increased at a dramatic pace until 1890, though they never accounted for more than .2 percent of the U.S. population through the 1800s.[2] After the Gold Rush, many Chinese people moved into the northwest territories of Oregon, Washington, and Montana in search of work, especially with the new mining opportunities and railroad expansion.[3] The Chinese workers developed a reputation for being efficient and willing to work long hours, but also for accepting less pay than white workers. This increased racial tensions in the West, as companies recruited Chinese workers in order to undercut higher-paid white workers.[2] Violent outbreaks against the Chinese...
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...The foundation of America is built on the sweat, tears and blood of hard working Americans. Americans who are often forgotten and unappreciated. In a world where money talks and time is money business men and women subjugate working Americans to terrible conditions to maximize their own profits. John Lewis’s speech is fundamental and important in American history because he forces us to appreciate the working class and their victories in establishing a fair working environment. Lewis declares and reminds the American people of the need for workers to unite and claim their rights in regards to their labor. John Lewis was a major player in the labor movement. His father was a coal miner, and eventually Lewis, himself would become a coal miner...
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...Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 29, Number 3—Summer 2015—Pages 3–30 Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation† David H. Autor T here have been periodic warnings in the last two centuries that automation and new technology were going to wipe out large numbers of middle class jobs. The best-known early example is the Luddite movement of the early 19th century, in which a group of English textile artisans protested the automation of textile production by seeking to destroy some of the machines. A lesser-known but more recent example is the concern over “The Automation Jobless,” as they were called in the title of a TIME magazine story of February 24, 1961: The number of jobs lost to more efficient machines is only part of the problem. What worries many job experts more is that automation may prevent the economy from creating enough new jobs. . . . Throughout industry, the trend has been to bigger production with a smaller work force. . . . Many of the losses in factory jobs have been countered by an increase in the service industries or in office jobs. But automation is beginning to move in and eliminate office jobs too. . . . In the past, new industries hired far more people than those they put out of business. But this is not true of many of today’s new industries. . . . Today’s new industries have comparatively few jobs for the unskilled or semiskilled, just the class of workers whose jobs are being eliminated...
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...LBS 3001: Introduction to Labor Studies (Section RXLA-55242) Summer A 2013 Instructor: Professor Alí R. Bustamante Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays / 11:00am – 1:40pm Credits: 3 Location: PC 439 Office Hours: LC 315, one hour before class or by appointment. E-mail: albustam@fiu.edu Department Phone: (305) 348-1519 Course Description: This course will introduce you to the challenges and struggles of working people in the United States. In our readings and classroom discussions, we will pay close attention to the conditions faced by low-wage workers in industrial, agricultural, and service jobs, as well as the impact of globalization on labor markets in the U.S. and abroad. We will also look at some of the hidden dimensions of working-class life through the lens of slavery, immigration, and global economic competition. By the end of the course, you will understand and be able to analyze: 1. What class is and how it operates in American society; 2. What it is like to work at a various low-wage jobs while trying to sustain yourself; 3. The impact of race, ethnicity, and gender on conditions in the American workplace; 4. How management exerts control over industrial, agricultural, and service workers; 5. The impact of large retailers and other consumer-oriented industries in determining conditions in the modern American workplace; 6. The role of immigration and the immigrant experience in the American workplace; 7. The evolution of and relationship...
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...Eloïse Stark Midterm Essay How to explain that women still get lower wages than men in the OECD countries? In western countries since the Second World War, women’s growing participation on the labor market has been one of the most profound transformations not only of the economy but also of society as a whole. Dual income families have become the norm and in a bid for sexual equality, most OECD countries have created laws to protect pay equality for men and women, such as the Equal Pay Act in 1963 in the US, or the article 119 of the EEC treaty. Nonetheless, women continue to earn less than men in all OECD countries. There are different ways of measuring this. Comparing annual or monthly earnings shows the difference between what both sexes “take home”, which is interesting from a sociological perspective. However we shall focus on the “gender pay gap”, defined as the “the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men working full time”. This shows the difference between the actual “price” of women and men’s labor, taking into consideration the fact that men work more hours on average. How does the gender gap stand today? Despite differences between countries the gender pay gap remains a persistent characteristic of OECD labor markets. In 2006, women earned an average of 16% less than men, per hour worked. … Although we can see a slow but continuous drop over the past few decades in all countries In OECD countries, which are...
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...education. The following will explain how education and the wage gap are related, what the situation is currently in the United States, and what other countries are doing to combat the wage gap which the U.S. can learn from. In order to understand how education has an effect on the wage gap, it is first important to understand the labor market and how wages are determined. “The Marginal Productivity of Labor” is the additional output produced by the addition of one more labor worker holding all other inputs fixed. “The Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Labor” says that the more workers there are (again, holding all things constant) the lower the total productivity per worker will be. This is comparable to having a factory with only one machine. If more machines are not ordered, but more workers are hired to operate the original machine, the new workers will be less productive because the machine only needs one person on it to operate. How does this affect wages? This affects wages because the labor demand and supply work the same way. Labor demand is how much labor a firm wants to employ at a given wage. Labor supply is how...
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...Labor Practices Paper Name PHL/320 Date Teacher Labor Practices - Sweatshops Most members of society deem sweatshops as an unacceptable source of labor. Others claim that many of those individuals living in developing countries, facing adverse circumstances, only dream of being employed by a sweatshop. Although at a bare minimum, sweatshops do provide its patrons a source of income. The wages earned by these workers help bring, maybe, a loaf of bread to their families. Sweatshops exploit its workers through dehumanizing practices, and should not be supported as a viable means of a country's economic development. Sweatshops are known for subjecting factory workers to dangerous and unsanitary working conditions. War On Want, an organization created to fight poverty in developing countries, states that "in 2009, approximately one million workers were injured at work and about 20,000 suffered from diseases due to their occupation" (Klein, 2009). Sweatshop employees work more than 70 hours per week, which is 30 hours more than the average American working full-time. After a day's work, employees head home to their cramped living quarters, with at least six workers to a room. It's almost as if these individuals are treated like cattle. According to an article done by Webster University, more than 55 percent of sweatshop employees are young and uneducated women. One of the biggest concerns for many sweatshop employers are having female workers becoming pregnant, as it...
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...decline in cocoa bean prices drove farmers to use slavery to lower labor cost. • Corporations are unable or unwilling to take action to improve the situation in harvesting the cocoa bean. • The fundamental demands of shareholder profits drives corporation to turn a blind eye to how cocoa is harvested. • Chocolate Consumers are kept so far removed from the Cocoa source that they are unaware or choose to be ignorant of the cost involved to create chocolate. 2) In your view is the kind of child slavery discussed in this case absolutely wrong no matter what or is it only relatively wrong i.e. if one happens to live in a society like ours that disapproves of Slavery. I believe that Slavery is wrong. Kidnapping is wrong. Forced labor for children is wrong. I would like to believe Slavery is absolutely wrong but this is coming from a Western perspective where we hold personal freedom as a right. We also don’t see the populations of poverty that some third world countries face. In countries where there is a high infant/child death rate due to poverty, and starvation, living as a slave could be seen as a preferable option compared to death. 3) Who shares in the moral responsibility for the slavery occurring in the Chocolate industry: African Farmers, African Government, American Chocolate Companies, Distributors, and Consumers? I believe that all of the above (African Farmers, African Government, American Chocolate Companies, Distributors, and Consumers)...
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