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World War One
World War One gave unions massive leverage over companies producing materials for the war effort because the companies desperately needed the workers. Therefore workers could strike for whatever they wanted and in turn got whatever they wanted from companies because the companies feared production would decrease. This affected the labor movement because Unions became so heavily popular during wars because they could get more from there employees due to the war effort. It gave unions more power. -
National War Labor Board
This board was created in order for the government to be in charge of relations between employers and employees. This lead for unions to not have much power over industries during war times. This also meant that the government sought through what employees were striking rightly for or not. The government settled all disputes rather than just one company. This impacts the labor movement because it gave less leeway for unions to get what they wanted which could decrease or increase production. -
Seattle General Strike
This started when shipyard workers expected a pay increase after the strict ways of WW1. The shipyards refused so workers walked out and shut down the shipyards. Many other unions joined them on a sympathy walk out, and as a result, thousands of employees refused to work and for little under a week, Seattle was without most of its production. This negatively impacted the Labor movement but it positively impacted union organizations. -
Norris La Guardia Act
This act outlawed the practice of companies hiring only workers who agreed not to the join the Union. This act made achieving better work conditions and pay easier for employees to do. It also gave employers and big companies less strength over taking advantage of their employees. This affected the Labor Movement by removing power from the ones in charge and giving it to the people doing the actual labor. -
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
This act guaranteed basic rights of private sector employees to organize trade unions and engage in collective bargaining and striking rights if the issue was deemed necessary. This act also improved the working conditions employees dealt with. In turn, it affected the labor movement because it kept industries producing but also gave its workers fair deals as well. -
Fair Labors Standards Act
This act set the first federal minimum wage which at the time had been 25 cents whereas today that would be equivalent to almost 4 dollars. This act also set regulations and restrictions to industries. It set restrictions for child labor and gave employees overtime pay. This positively effected the labor movement because it created set rules for everyone to follow which lead to advantages for employees and helped production grow faster. -
The Cold War
The Cold War impacted the labor movement and unions because when workers striked, they were portrayed by the press as "un-american" and the strong fear of communism helped fuel the distaste for worker organizations. As a result, all labor unions became targets of tactics designed to prevent them from maintaining membership and growing in strength. This term was referred to as "Union-Busting". -
Steel Strike
The Steel Strike of 1959 had been a time where the steel industry skyrocketed. While the industry was making lots of money, employees were not getting better wages and started to demand it. 500,000 workers went on strike because of the low wages and long hard work. So due to the strike the workers received wage increase and preserved their contract clause. This affected the labor movement because it made workers get better pay for their work because overall the company was receiving more money. -
The Great Postal Strike
200,000 postal workers went on strike and were denied freedom to bargain wages. Because they were federal employees, they were forbidden to advocate for the workers to strike. With this said it negatively impacted the labor movement because as their pay decreased they could not do anything to fix the issue due to being employees of the government. This lead to low wages and unhappy employees which gave way for unsatisfactory production. -
UPS Workers Stike
This was the largest strike of the 90's and was lead by 185,000 UPS team members. They wanted full time jobs, better wages and a pension plan. They gained a lot of public support and had all of their demands met. However the drawback of that, had been that UPS lost more than 600 million dollars as a result of the ordeal. This relates to the labor movement because the employees had wanted better terms of their employment which meant that the employers had to give in to their demands.
