Supply and Demand - cont.

 

The first land-based recorded strike in the United States was among cordwainers - as shoemakers were then called - in Philadelphia in 1804. Most craft unions at that time were formed for just one strike or action and then disbanded. By the 1820s, though, more or less permanent unions did form and even federations began to emerge.

From the start, unions ran into the same major problem they face today: Employers would use the power of the government to limit or crush them. Owners tried to persuade the courts to rule that strikes - and even unions themselves - were criminal conspiracies. In 1842, Massachusetts courts said that strikes for better working conditions were not criminal, but often local authorities behaved as if they were, using police and even militia to suppress union actions.

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