THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNION ORGANIZATION AND POLICIES BEFORE THE 1930's
The first unions must be distinguished from guilds, which were organizations of journeymen and masters. The refusal of master bakers in New York in 1741 to make bread, for example, was a protest against the city's regulated price of bread, not one of wage earners against their employers. According to Perlman, the first strike of wage earners occurred in 1786, when Philadelphia printers "turned out" for a minimum wage of $6.00 a week, and the first organization of wage earners with a continuous existence was formed by Philadelphia journeymen cordwainers (shoemakers) in 1792. Before 1819 journeymen societies were organized in New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, and other cities, not only among printers and cordwainers, but also among carpenters, tailors, and sailors. These societies were local trade unions, each built around a specific skill, but there was little if any connection between one society and another, even in the same community, or contact among the unions of the same trade in different communities.1
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Labor Markets, Unions, and Government Policies.
Contributors: Everett Johnson Burtt Jr. - Author.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1963.
Page number: 108.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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