¶ … British Todpuddle Martyrs were shipped to an Australian penal colony in the nineteenth century, organized labor has contended with a slew of setbacks. Social reforms early in the Industrial Revolution saw that workers did retain some rights to organize; however, the labor union movement in Europe and North America has continually struggled to maintain legitimacy, stability, and relevance. The Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries essentially gave birth to the modern manifestation of labor unions, due to the deplorable working conditions, long hours, and low wages workers contended with. The advent of the factory not only transformed the ways goods were manufactured and distributed but also changed the nature of labor as well as its political implications. Workers went almost overnight from being apprenticed trades people to unskilled laborers. As factories blossomed across Europe and North America, a vast amount of unskilled laborers were recruited to fulfill increased production and profit quotas. Factory owners, businessmen, tycoons, and entrepreneurs took full advantage of the ability to exploit workers. However, a shift in the political and social climate of Europe and the Americas permitted the formation of early labor unions. Although they were illegal at first, unions like the British Tolpuddle Martyrs organized to garner rights for working people. Increased wages, fewer hours, and improved working conditions were and still are staples of the labor movement, although the political platform of labor has become more complex in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although labor has won many notable victories and has changed the ways many industries operate, unions have had to compromise a lot of its goals. In the United States, unions have recently become weakened in many sectors, even irrelevant in others. However, labor unions continue to thrive and fight to gain and retain workers' rights. From the Tolpuddle Martyrs...
The initial formation of labor unions was difficult, requiring the efforts of one or two dedicated souls. Early unions were relatively unsuccessful precisely because of the difficulties that organization entails. For example, some of the first organized strikes in the United States were small-scale efforts on the part of printers and carpenters in order to secure better wages and shorter hours. Although not large-scale efforts, these initial strikes brought attention to the fact that many laborers were dissatisfied with their lot. As such, these early strikes gave birth to the modern labor federations and unions.
Fortunately, workers in various and different trades tended to have the same needs and desires. As American culture became more systematically capitalistic in the nineteenth century and as the wealth gap grew between laborer and factory owner, workers became more willing and able to organize effectively. Unions that were limited to their specific trade or even to a specific factory began to see the benefit in linking up with other unions in the same town, county, region, or state. In 1866, one of the first American nation-wide labor unions was formed and it successfully petitioned congress to institute the eight-hour day. The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, soon followed suit and became one of the first large-scale labor union efforts.
However successful the efforts of the Knights of Labor were in joining together the diverse labor population in the United States, it soon became clear that labor unions would struggle continuously with strife and divisiveness within their own ranks. The Knights of Labor had both skilled and unskilled…
