Essays on Organized Labor

Gebelhoff (2016) points out that around 10% of U.S. workers were union members in 2013. Thus, only a small fraction of employees discuss their wages with employers. Gebelhoff (2016) notes that there were 35% of labor unions in America in 1945, however nowadays the number is a tiny one, and the Europe significantly differs in this aspect. Unionized labor is not prevalent, since the manufacturing sector is not popular anymore. The lack of labor unions in the United Stated of America is related to the growth of economic and political inequality as well as lack of progress in terms ...

Many Latinos from South America, Central America, and Mexico have made decisions to either legally or illegally to immigrate into the United States of America over the past decades. Similarly, many Asian populations have migrated into the United States of America either legally or illegally. For decades, film makers have been capturing the experiences and stories of the immigrants in the United States of America. The exponential increase in the number of the immigrants over the past decades has led to the surge of high-quality documentaries, like Crossing Arizona, produced in the year 2006. In this film, varying degrees ...

Many a time have people heard about politicians who do plenty of talking. However, verbal rhetoric is only meaningful when backed by actual deeds aimed at the improvement of what politicians oversee, which is society and its welfare. The incumbent Senate President of New Jersey, Stephen Sweeney is one of such politicians who may be said to utilize his legislative authority to its limit. He has showed his aptitude in areas, such as education, property ownership, taxation, healthcare, and the protection of different social categories. Of course, as with other prominent politicians, however renowned, Sweeney has made some controversial ...

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Question 1 What are the primary reasons for the decline of the ranks of organized labor in the twentieth century? In the United States of America, the decline of organized labor can be identified as one of the majorly marked events in the twentieth century’s labor market. There are several following reasons to be discussed that led to the massive decline of organized labor in the US. By late 1940, gigantic business industries, conservatives and Republicans had effectively extended corresponding strategies to break up the alliance of structured labor force (Hanley & O'Gorman, 2004). In the meantime, organized labor ...

M 3/7 Topic: What kind of cultures were at war during 1920s? During 1920s two types of American cultures were at war: urban culture and rural culture. New urban culture was centered in cities and had such features as religious and ethnic pluralism due to immigration, new forms of mass entertainment (radio and motion pictures), liberated sexual rules. Rural culture concentrated in rural areas of America considered new urban culture not as an expansion of freedom, but as a threat to traditional values, religion and understanding of American freedom. An example of cultural wars was the Scopes trial (teacher ...

Chapter one

In his book Working Class-New York, Joshua Benjamin Freeman draws the labor movements and way of life after the Second World War. The Book revolves around a sweeping history of the New York City. After the World War, the model city carved out an equitable and idealistic path to the future. Through the combined efforts of the working class, the city becomes the model city of the liberal America. Although the Second World War conferred many benefits to the city, the city had an equal measure of troubles too. Benjamin Freeman illustrates how the events of World War impacted on ...

That fact that the American labor movement has been on a sharp decline is not in question. Statistics released by the US Bureau of Statistics in the year 2013 on the summary of the unionization in the United States, the union membership stood at a paltry 11.3 percent in the year 2012. This was a level lower than in the year 2011 when the union membership was at 11.8 percent. The plummeting of union membership and the labor movement in general in the United States has been phenomenal in the last fifty years when it was at the peak with over 30 ...

This essay discusses how the Labor Unions perceive the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” as it is often called. Just as with the rest of the U.S. population, there are conflicting views. By reviewing a selection of published articles, it is hoped to assess whether on balance America’s Labor Unions see the Affordable Care Act as an opportunity or an obstacle. According to Barone (Oct. 2013), the leaders of the labor unions have been complaining about Obamacare, adding their voices to the Republicans who oppose it. He reports that in July, presidents of three major unions (Teamsters, United ...

Introduction

The National Labor Relations Act/the Wagner Act has essentially been defined as perhaps the most fundamental piece of legislation that the United States Congress has ever enacted. The Act is named after Robert F. Wagner, a New York Democratic Senator. Wagner Act is a 1935 federal law, which provided for the collective bargaining and recognized the workers’ rights to choose their representatives to present them in the bargaining unit. The Act promised to prevent the recurring depressions, uphold a full flow of the purchasing power, and guarantee a wise wealth distribution between labor and management. In the mid of 1930s, the United States ...

Organization

Introduction A union is essentially an organization that is established by the works for pursuing collective workplace goals such as wages, power, benefits and work rules. In this paper, the attitudes of Americans towards organized labor would be discussed in detail.

In the US, various unions and organizes labor arose after the Civil War, as a response to the modern industrial practices and economy. During the period of 1930’s and 1950’s, establishment of organized labor in the form of unions became a popular practice in all industries. The elites of the American society promoted this trend as the ...

Introduction

Workers are the people who are in need of finding a job and create income for themselves and their families to survive. Workers, in general, are weak economically and financially; and, because of this, they become against weak companies in negotiating over work conditions, payment and making work contracts. There are many factors determining the power of the labor unions: legal regulations, support by public, media support, social and cultural background in a country, and many others. Each country has different regulations about labor rights and labor unions. In the developed countries, being a member of a labor union is mostly promoted ...

The Great Depression, HIS 204

Iconic Image of Great Depression Poverty and Despair: Migrant Mother, by Dorothea Lange The Great Depression as Era of Radical Activism and Political: The Successful Conclusion of the 1937 Sit-Down Strike at General Motors ABSTRACT Thus essay will describe the causes and consequences of the Great Depression of 1929-41, which was the worst economic upheaval in U.S. history. It will discuss the various theories about the causes of the Depression, such as Keynesian under-consumption or the monetarist view that the Federal Reserve Board failed in its duties. Then it will continue to describe the results of ...

Labour unions have played a major role in the United States during the period 1947 to 1973, which is the era of capitalism and industrialization, a period characterized by high wages for workers. In the same manner, labour unions in Canada during the 1970s also helped the country achieve political, economic and social progress. However, times have changed and some observers believe that unions are facing a serious crisis. McFarland expresses in an article in the “The Globe and Mail” that despite the four million union members in Canada, organized labour still faces a shrinking coverage in Canada’s work force. One ...

Introduction

The organized labor movement, which is currently a powerful body advocating for the rights of workers, began in the early nineteenth century. Prior to the movement, workers used to suffer silently in the hands of their employees. As it were, the employees, relying on their employers for virtually all basic human needs, could not afford to protest. However, a myriad of events led to the awakening of the workers. The employees started uniting against their oppressive employers who, incidentally, had the support of the political authorities of the day. Despite various hurdles, including suppression by the manufacturers and the political authorities, ...

ABSTRACT

Never in its history had the U.S. faced an economic crisis like the Great Depression of 1929-41, and never had the federal government played such an active role in social and economic life prior to the New Deal. From the 1870s to 1920s, almost all of the presidents had been conservative Republicans who served the interests of Wall Street and large corporations rather than workers, small farmers and the general public. With the collapse of capitalism in 1929-33, though, these forces were temporarily discredited and the door was left open to new economic policies that abandoned laissez faire in ...

Abstract

The labor unions have provisions and features which allow for more discrimination based on race and ethnicity. They were historically detrimental to minority workers, especially the Blacks. This paper will focus on the historic vulnerabilities of the minority workers, specifically the Blacks and the Chinese workers during the 1800’s. These vulnerabilities pose a dangerous risk to the continued manifestation and persistence of discrimination among minority workers. This paper, therefore, intends to illustrate the ways by which labor unions put the Blacks and the Chinese workers to a great disadvantage in the past. This knowledge would be essential in generating ...

Fletcher, Bill, and Fernando Gapasin. Solidarity divided: the crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

In Bill Fletcher's book Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice, the authors delve into the intricacies of the US labor trade union movement. Today, the struggle for labor and union rights is ongoing and extremely complex; the authors examine the various issues that are causing the complexity and advocate for a greater sense of social justice. The purpose for writing this book is to win the war for ...