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Unions in America

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Submitted By surpip
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Dale Moles

Dan Barthel

Micro-Econ Spring 2011

5 May 2011

Unions in America

Over the past century in America the labor movement has played an important role in the shaping of this country, for better or worse. The influence of unions has ebbed and flowed through the bas century in a struggle for power in the workplace. The status of the labor movement has always been precarious due to the love-hate relationship America has toward unions. Today, just as one hundred years ago, some Americans feel that unions are crucial to the continuing development of our country, and others believe that they are the opposite, that unions will eventually drag the country down. Unions are just about as old as America itself. There were primitive unions of carpenters and other groups in colonial America but it wasn’t until the 1820’s that national labor unions started to gain strength. It was during this time that workers banded together to reduce the hours worked in a day from 12 to 10, and then in 1866 the National Labor Union persuaded Congress to drop the workday to the current 8 hours. Labor Day is a creation of unions as well. The first Labor Day celebration was on the 5th of September, 1882. Labor Day is now held on the first Monday in September. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed in 1866 and made many contributions to the cause of protection American workers. The AFL lobbied to create the US Department Moles Pg. 2 of Labor and the Children’s Bureau in the 1890’s. They were also instrumental in passing the Clayton Act of 1914, the first significant piece of union legislation in the 20th century. This gave unions the ability to picket, and limited the use of court injunctions in labor disputes. It also exempted the unions from the provisions of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust act. Most of the biggest changes to the labor laws took place in

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