The U.S. Labor Movement: Historical Overview
The Essential Primary Sources
Table of Contents
The U.S. Labor Movement: Historical Overview
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Abstract
Organized labor is based on the idea that the class interests of all workers should be their primary motivation in life. If, as Marx and Engels suggested, the workers of the world did unite, they would probably unite on that basis. The laboring class would gang up on the rich because there are far more workers than bosses in the world. The problem that the American labor movement has faced throughout its history has been that so many other forces have driven workers in the United States apart that it has been impossible to sustain whatever victories it has won over the long run.
Contents
- The U.S. Labor Movement: Historical Overview
- Worker Testimony: Commonwealth v. Pullis
- Frances Wright: “The People at War”
- Commonwealth v. Hunt
- W. Chase: “Causes of Failure”
- “A Week in the Mill”
- Oath of the Knights of Labor
- Terence Powderly: “The Plea for Eight Hours”
- Samuel Gompers: “What Does Labor Want?”
- Eugene V. Debs: “Industrial Peace”
- Mother Jones: Speech to the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)
- The U.S. Oil Industry: Historical Overview
- William “Big Bill” Haywood: Speech to the Founding Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World
- Clara Lemlich: Speech Instigating the Uprising of the 20,000
- Mother Jones: Speech to Striking Coal Miners
- Pearl Jolly: Testimony about the Ludlow Massacre
- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: “Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of Worker Efficiency”
- National Labor Relations Act
- John L. Lewis, “Labor and the Nation”
- Walter Reuther: National Hour Radio Address on Inflation
- Taft-Hartley Act
- Landrum-Griffin Act
- John F. Kennedy: Executive Order 10988: Employee-Management Cooperation in the Federal Service
- George Meany: Congressional Testimony in Favor of Civil Rights Bill
- Ronald Reagan: “Remarks on the Air Traffic Controllers Strike”
- Economic Policy Institute: “NAFTA at Seven”
- Richard Trumka: Speech at the Democratic National Convention
- Starbucks Workers United: “Our Fight”
- Amazon Labor Union: “Our Core Principles”