The Soul of Labor History
is the Story of Democracy

 

The labor movement in the United States did not arise spontaneously. Its history
is part of the larger story of human development, tracing vast changes in how
people work and for whom, not just here, but throughout the world. This summary
reflects the ideas and trends that emerge from union history and continue
to shape our current labor, political and cultural landscape.

 

Supply and Demand

Tension between limiting the supply of skilled labor and maintaining decent wages for an ever-growing supply of workers has been a constant thread of union history.

The labor movement in the United States has its origins in European peasant movements and in the medieval trade guilds - two lineages that don’t always easily coexist with each other. One way the skilled, hereditary guilds traditionally improved wages and working conditions was to limit the labor supply. Employers then had to meet worker wage demands because there was nowhere else to go for those services. However, as peasants moved from the land to the cities - a migration that exploded during the industrial revolution in the 1800s - it brought a much larger, less uniform, less skilled group of people to the work force - creating a constant pool of replacement workers for each job...

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