History of Labor Unions

By atlleader12

  • First Labor Union

    The First major labor union (Knights of Labor) formed in the mid 1880s

  • AFL is Founded

    American Federation of Labor is founded and plays a key role in organization of strikes and on the political side of labor

  • New Deal

    Labor unions benefit from the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

  • Wagner Act

    Wagner Act is passed and it protected the rights of labor unions to organize and protest

  • Harvard Trade Union Program

    labor education programs such as the Harvard Trade Union Program created by Harvard University professor John Thomas Dunlop sought to educate union members to deal with important contemporary workplace and labor law issues of the day

  • Control in Congress

    Pro-business conservatives gained control of Congress

  • Taft Hartley Act

    The Taft Hartley Act is passed (still in effect today) it restricted the unions from calling strikes that “threatened national security” and to expel communist union labor union leaders (later changed after the Supreme Court found it to be unconstitutional)

  • Workers Peak

    the percent of workers in a union peaked at 35%

  • Unions Merge

    the two largest unions The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) merged

  • Most members

    the total amount of workers in a union peaks at 21 million members

  • Study today

    A study in the Economic History Review found that the rise of labor unions in the 1930s and 1940s reduced income inequality