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Labor Unions Used By Factory Workers In The Industrial Revolution

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Workers in the Industrial Revolution frequently employed labor unions to organize strikes in order to gain leverage over companies so they could force improvements. The Industrial Revolution marked a time of horrendous working conditions and quality of life for many working class people. The typical work week is six days and consists of 12 hour shifts with few breaks. Children as young as six had to work jobs in factories and mines alongside adults to help their families make enough money to survive. Additionally, growing urban areas offered poor sanitation and services, furthering the destruction the Industrial Revolution caused to the working class. Labor unions allowed working class people to advocate for themselves because they were able …show more content…

This meant that labor unions posed formidable opponents to companies because they could organize strikes and lobby for their rights. One of the first large trade unions was formed in New York and called the General Trades’ Union (GTU), which later developed into the National Trades Union (NTU). The main goals of the NTU were to encourage the moral and intellectual interests and wellbeing of the working classes, spread knowledge to members, establish GTUs in the United States, and unite the working class. The NTU was successful in reducing the workday from twelve hours to ten hours as well as uniting the working class by amassing 300,000 members and representing twenty to thirty percent of all workers in the areas in which it was present. Unions forced changes by using collective bargaining, which included strikes, to damage businesses and make them negotiate improvements posed by the unions. In New York, carpenters went on strike to get paid $1.75 per day and then again to attain a salary of $2 per day. Sometimes strikes turned violent as seen in early 1800s

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