Advantages And Disadvantages Of Industrial Unionism

Have you ever wondered where all your everyday products that you get come from? Factories and workers were a remarkable compromise which got people the things they needed including shoes, clothes, and home products. Many of the workers began at Cotton mills but as the years went on factories were created and more products were being made and a lot faster. Factories and workers led to the idea of industrial unionism, making sure children stay safe working in the factories, and the establishment of the Labor Movement. Factories started out as Cotton mills. When the War of 1812 was coming to an end, trade and foreign cloth were starting to become unavailable, sixteen Cotton mills were operating within a thirty mile radius of Provincetown,

The mill owner, Samuel Slater, let investigators come in and take a look at the dorms and he said that the housing was clean and suitable for them to live in. “The laborer at wages has all the disadvantages of freedom and none of its blessings, while the slave, if denied the blessing, is freed from the disadvantages.” (Brownson qtd. in Reef 2007)

The idea of industrial unionism was brought up. U.S. manufacturers began to hire potters, mechanics, watchmakers, button makers, and other skilled crafts people from Germany, Ireland, and England. Alexander Hamilton said “it is in the interest of nations to diversity the industrious pursuits of the individuals who compose them” (Reef 54). In 1798, Eli Whitney, the inventor of the Cotton gin, built a factory near New Haven, Connecticut where he arranged a plan to make firearms with interchangeable parts He began the assembly line where each worker completed a single part of the manufacturing process. The idea of the interchangeable parts later led to the concept of

Early labor leaders saw it as raising up “two distinct classes, the rich and the poor” (History.com) The labor movement and trade unionism were held to be strands of a single movement but they shared a common leadership.

The Knights of Labor attracted massive numbers of workers, hoping to improve their urgent conditions. The Knight Of Labor federation marked a break from the past, for it contradicted to labor reform any further role in the struggle of American workers. As industrialism aged, labor reform lost its meaning which led to the confusion and intimate failure of The Knights of Labor

The long lasting impact of this is things being able to be created for us and us not having to make things for our own in our homes. Today, there have been 200,000 new manufacturing jobs and the wages for workers have rose since the 1800’s. Car plants are also being expanded to other states including Michigan and Alabama.

The establishment of factories and workers has grown so much since when they first started. There are now so many companies and factories everywhere you go and in them are workers who are working hard to place things on the shelves of