Current State of Labor Movements Essay

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labor movement in the United States started due to the need for protecting the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, the labor unions normally fought for various things including reasonable working hours, better wages and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts in stopping child labor, providing aid to workers that were injured or retired and even giving health benefits to them. The origins of this labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation when there was the emergence of a free wage labor market in the artisan trades during the late colonial period. The earliest documented strike took place in 1768 when the New York journeymen tailors expressed their dissatisfaction with the wage reduction.in 1794 the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers in Philadelphia was formed which marked the beginning of sustained trade union organization among the workers in America ( A&E Television Networks, LLC, 2014). From then hence forth there was proliferation of local craft unions in cities that went ahead to publish lists of "prices" for their work, the defense against diluted and cheap labor and increasingly demanding for short working days. This led to the emergence of a job-conscious orientation and in its wake there came about key structural elements that characterize the American trade Unionism.

Today unions still continue to serve the same purpose they were originally founded for. The executive and CEO compensation is currently on the rise while the middle class are still suffering layoffs, stagnant wages .therefore the current union agendas include ensuring that wages for employees are increased, raising the living standards of the working class, ensuring there are safe working conditions for workers and increasing the benefits for workers as well as their families.

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Unions are important since most of the corporations have their focus on making profits at the expense of their employees. Generally the nature of work in America is changing and employers are trying very hard to shed the responsibility for providing good pension coverage, insurance, reasonable working hours and job safety protections. Instead most of the companies are making the jobs and incomes of their workers less secure through ways such as part-timing, downsizing, contracting out and sending jobs off-shore.it is now more than ever that the working people require a collective voice and a bargaining power provided by unions in order to keep employers from making the workplace look as it did in the nineteenth century. Without this collective representation the threat of unlivable wages, sweatshop conditions and the 70-hour weeks may just be a permanent thing in the American's working future just as it did in the past. Today and in the future labor unions will continue paying an important role in the workforce in America as well as the quality of life of the working families. America's working families require collective power, representation, pride in work and fair….....

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