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LABELING group, they could pressure employers to respond to their
demands.
SEE Packaging
The progression of the Industrial Revolution and the
formation of labor unions go hand in hand. The Indus-
trial Revolution brought about specialization of employ-
LABOR ees in the workplace and a dramatic increase in
production. This factory system, which developed in the
SEE Factors of Production
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, brought to
workers both prosperity (steady employment in good eco-
nomic times) and hardship (bad working conditions and
unemployment) during depressions. Thus, the Industrial
LABOR UNIONS
Revolution changed the American class structure, turning
A labor union has been defined as “a group of workers who skilled tradesmen into the working class, who found it
have banded together to achieve common goals in the key very difficult to escape factory life.
areas of wages, hours, and working conditions” (Boone
As more and more workers united to improve their
and Kurtz, 2005). Originally, labor unions were primarily situation, two types of labor unions emerged. Craft
made up of male, blue-collar workers, but as the economy unions were made up of workers who were skilled in a
of the United States evolved from production industries to specific trade. Many craft unions were organized in the
service industries, union membership has seen a dramatic 1790s, such as the Philadelphia shoemakers in 1792, the
increase in white-collar and female workers. Boston carpenters in 1793, and the New York printers in
1794.
HISTORY AND EVOLUTION Beginning in 1827, laborers who worked in the same
Labor unions began to evolve in the United States in the industry, regardless of their specific job, formed industrial
1700s and 1800s because of the need for safety and secu- unions, such as the United Steel Workers and the Team-
rity for workers. Workers formed labor unions in response sters. The 1837 depression nearly wiped out these unions,
to intolerable working conditions, low wages, and long but they were reborn shortly before the Civil War
hours. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, men, (1861–1865) and became strong enough to survive reces-
women, and even children worked in unsafe factories sions.
from dawn to dark every day of the week for only pennies Five major labor organizations emerged between
a day. These oppressive conditions forced workers to look 1866 and 1936. The National Labor Union was organized
for ways to improve their situation. They gradually in 1866. Though it became a political party and collapsed
learned that by banding together and bargaining as a within six years, it did successfully bring together into a
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