History of Labor Unions

Unions started forming in the United States in the mid 1800's due to the effect of the industrial revolution. One of first strikes was by a group called Molly Maguires against mine owners in 1875. This portrayed the unions and the labor movement as being violent and unlawful. In 1877 the railway strike was the first general strike to sweep the U.S. This strike cause a wave of 117,000 until 1890. The Haymarket Square riot was to support the 8 hour day. This led to action against the Chicago police which then the public became fearful of labor unions. Taking us into the 1900's the IWW was created to become one large industrial union. Then the CIO was formed in 1935 believing the the AFL didn't represent the interests of unskilled workers. In 1955 the CIO and the AFL merged to stop raids on each others union and to handle the anti-union attitudes in the U.S.

I believe efforts by people like the Koch brothers and the Wall Mart heirs to bust the unions have had disastrous affects on the unions. On the other hand unions were becoming to big and powerful and actually started hurting business such as the UAW union. We used to call GM generous motors due to the blatant misuse of union power.

In my opinion unions are going to continue to decline in the U.S. due to to high unemployment rates which lowers public approval of labor unions. I also believe unionized workers raise there own wages that are disproportional to the growth rate of business's.

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