Essay 7: Please write three essay pages on the economic, political, and social impact of the Civil War on our life today

Essay 8: Please write three pages on the working conditions and Workers during the 1800s.  What role did union play in organizing workers?  Did the Union succeed in organizing workers then?  Where did the Union power lie? 

Your essay should be a minimum of 3 to 4 pages not including the cover page and the work cited page. It should be in MLA format with sources cited from the textbook and at least two outside sources.

Cover Page

·         Top Center-title, your name

·         Bottom center – course name, teacher’s name, date

Introduction

·         Thesis statement (what is the main idea you will be discussing?)

·         Offer introduction to five main points you will be discussing in relation to your thesis statement

Point 1

·         Restate the first of your five main points

·         Offer an example as to why this point supports your thesis statement

·         Give proof of this example (a quotation from a reliable source)

·         Discuss in more detail (you can include opinion)

Point 2

·         Restate the Second of your five main points

·         Offer an example as to why this point supports your interest statement

·         Give proof of this example (a quotation from a reliable source)

·         Discuss in more detail (you can include opinion)

Point 3

·         Restate the third of your five main points

·         Offer an example as to why this point supports your interest statement

·         Give proof of this example (a quotation from a reliable source)

·         Discuss in more detail (you can include opinion)

Point 4

Point 5

Conclusion: Remind the reader about the amazing ideas you just presented in your essay by:

·         Restating your thesis statement

·         Summarizing your main points

Bibliography: (Sometimes called work cited, resources or references)

·         You must list all of the resources (Books, articles, newspapers, Internet sites, etc….) that you used to find information for your essay

 

Introduction

Most of the labor unions came to be in the late 1800s, and this includes the American Federation of Labor and the Knight of Labor. These unions' objectives were to fight for the termination of child labor, improve the working condition, have shorter working hours, higher wages, and have short working days. The labor union that supported the strike collected money from its members, and these amounts were saved and used when the members were involved in the strike. The money acted as a source of income (Dalton, Dan, and James 430). Certain unions only allowed white skilled laborers that were not easily replaced. Other unions opened up to persons from different levels of background and skills.

Working conditions and Workers during the 1800s

Knight of Labor was a labor federation in America and was active in the 1880s with operations in Canada and the United States. It had chapters in Australia and the United Kingdom as well. Terence V. Powdey was the leader. It promoted the cultural and social uplift of workers and insisted on the eight-hour day. In certain instances, the labor union was always in negotiation for employees but lacked funding; therefore, it was not well organized. The Knight of Labor was unique in the quest to coordinate across racial and gender identity and its inclusion towards unskilled together with skilled labor (Weir 293). The Knight of Labor was an organization that initially involved the labor force in the USA.

The federation was started on December 28, 1969, by Allet Thomas and reached a membership of 28,000 in the year 1880. This number moved to 100,000 by the year 1884. In 1886, precisely 20% of its members were workers. This translated to about 800,000 workers. The organization's framework could not sustain because it suffered violence-related charges, negligence, and slander within the union with the riot at Haymarket Square. The majority of its comrades left the union in 1886 and 1887, therefore, abandoning scarcely 100,000 in 1890. The majority decided to join the unions, which assisted in identifying the member’s needs instead of using the Knight of Labor which was synonymous with addressing any type of needs. The 1893 Panic ended the union’s significance. The remainder of the union carried on with the organization up to 1949. At this point, the last members ceased their connection.

Even though the Knight of Labor is often overlooked, it contributed immensely to the protest songs that became its tradition in the United States. It usually included music in their frequent meetings and urged union grassroots supporters to perform and write the existing work.  Emily Talmadge and James, supporters and publishers of the KOL, printed the "Labor Knights of Labor” songbook in 1885 in Chicago. The most popular song was “Hold the Fort” before the invention of Raph Chaplin’s Solidarity Forever. Pete Seeger always performed the song, and it was in a variety of his recordings. Bucky Halker, a singer and songwriter, included Talmadge’s version, called “Our Battle Song” on Don’t Want Your Million CD. Additionally, Halker drew immensely on the poems of KOL together with the songs in his poetry book and songs of labor.

With the growth of industrialization, owners insisted on more output from their workers. To address the matter, workers formed labor unions. The workers understood that they were strong together. Unions pushed for collective bargaining. This is the process whereupon the worker’s representatives pushed for negotiation of conditions of employment together with management and representatives. In the event of successful collective bargaining, a legal agreement or contract was enforced. In the event that it was unsuccessful, then the workers proceeded to strike. Therefore, this meant that the workers would refuse to carry on with their duties up to the moment the demand of the workers was met.

The process of negotiation between a clique of employees and employers is referred to as collective bargaining. This process is aimed at agreeing to regulate the salaries of workers, the conditions of working, rights, and compensation of workers (Feller 61). The employee's interest is mainly presented by a trade union representative where the employee belongs. The collective agreement arrived at after these negotiations often set out the scale of wage, hours of work, safety, health and training, mechanism of grievance, over time, the rights to be involved in the organization affairs at the workplace.

Conclusions

The worker’s union may come to an agreement with one employer (who often represents the company's shareholders) or may at times negotiate with a group of businesses, which depend on the country, to come up with the agreement that covers the industry. A labor contract also serves as a collective agreement between more unions and employers. Collective bargaining involves the negotiation process between employers (often representing the organization's management) and the union representatives (Fink 130). In other countries like Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden, this is done by the employers' organization regarding the terms and conditions of employee’s employment, for example, the procedure of grievance, conditions of working, working hours, wages, responsibilities, and rights the union. The involved group referred to the outcome of the negotiation process as either CEA or CBA (Fink 150).