During the slavery period in the United States, there existed a big contrast between the masters and the slaves. The masters aimed at ensuring they kept the slaves in chains and ripped maximum benefits from their labor. The abolishment of slavery system, however, did not do much to end this stalemate. The masters, who turned out to be the employers, continued to exploit the freed slaves by giving them poor terms of labor. For a worker to earn more, they needed to put in more effort or work more for their employers. This led to the rise of unions. The aim of the trade unions was to give the workers the power to control the factor of production known as labor.
In the industrial sector, unions emerged as a means to fight for better wages, safe working conditions and reasonable working hours. Labor movements lay their foundations in the formative years of America, a period during which free-wage labor market also emerged. The first union was in Philadelphia, known as Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers in 1794. From that time, other local craft unions emerged. They published the prices for their work, fought cheap labor and demanded for shorter working hours. A job-consciousness orientation emerged, and subsequently, other craftsmen began forming unions.
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The initial labor movement was inspired by the conception of a just society. This can be derived from the Ricardian labor theory of value and the American Revolution ideals. The two fostered social equality and honest labor. However, early leaders saw this as an opportunity for the emergence of two distinct classes, i.e., the rich and the poor. In 1866, the Knights of Labor emerged, who advocated for cooperative commonwealth instead of higher wages. They appealed to all producers instead of the wageworkers. They did not support the trade unions reliance on strikes and boycotts. However, both the trade unions and the Knights of Labor appeared to have similar motives. A division later emerged in the Knights of Labor in the 1880 and subsequently led to the formation of American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886. Subsequent attempts to improve the labor movement were later to be suppressed by the Great Depression.
AFL continued to pursue improvements in the labor sector despite technological advancements which undermined the efforts of the craftsmen. However, as technology advances, the labor producers continued to improve their skills and subsequently strengthening the unions. More trade unions have continued to emerge over the years and continued to advocate for the rights of the workers as well as the employers in equal measure.
