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Labor unions in the United States today function as legally recognized representatives of workers in numerous industries, but are strongest among public sector employees such as teachers and police. Activity by labor unions in the United States today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership and on representing their members if management attempts to violate contract provisions. Although much smaller compared to their peak membership in the 1950s, unions also remain an important political factor (especially within the Democratic Party), both through mobilization of their own memberships and through coalitions with like-minded activist organizations.

The first local unions in the United States formed in the late 18th century, but the movement came into its own after the Civil War, when the short-lived National Labor Union (NLU) became the first federation of U.S. unions, followed by the slightly longer-lived Knights of Labor (a broadly-based federation that collapsed in the wake of the Haymarket Riot), then by the American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers as a national federation of skilled workers' unions.

In contrast to the craft unionism of the AFL, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "the Wobblies"), founded in 1905, represented mainly unskilled workers. The Wobblies, a force in American labor only for about 15 years, were largely routed by the Palmer Raids after World War I, but the strategy of industrial unionism was soon revived by John L. Lewis' Committee for Industrial Organizations within the AFL. Founded in 1933, the committee split from the AFL in 1938 as the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Red Scare after World War II pushed the AFL and CIO into a 1955 merger as the AFL-CIO under Lewis' leadership.

Today most unions are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both organizations advocate policies and legislation favorable to workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.

American union membership in the private sector has in recent years fallen under 9%--levels not seen since 1932. Workers seem uninterested in joining, and strike activity has almost faded away. The labor force in unionized automobile and steel plants, for example, has fallen dramatically. Construction trades in cities have sudddenly shifted from over 75% unionized to under 25%. Only the commercial sector of construction has retained 50% or better union representation. The inability to prevent non-union companies from taking significant market share has undercut union membership. Meanwhile the forces of economic liberalization (neoliberalism), capital mobility, and globalization have affected measurably the material standard of living enjoyed by workers in the United States; and mass immigration from Mexico has continued to restructure the domestic labor force.

Since the 1940s unions have admitted Blacks, Hispanics and women.

Labor unions today

Today most labor unions in the United States are members of one of two larger umbrella organizations: the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) or the Change to Win Coalition, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both organizations advocate policies and legislation favorable to workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in Democratic party politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.

Private sector union members are tightly regulated by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935. The law is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), part of the United States Department of Labor. Public sector unions are regulated partly by federal and partly by state laws. In general they have shown robust growth rates, for wages and working conditions are set through negotiations with elected local and state officials. The unions' political power thus comes into play, and of course the local government cannot threaten to move elsewhere, nor is there any threat from foreign competition. In California the public sector unions have been especially successful.

To join a union, workers must either:

• be given voluntary recognition from their employer or
• have a majority of workers in a "bargaining unit" vote for union representation.

In either case, the government must then certify the newly formed union.

Public sector worker unions are governed by labor laws and labor boards in each of the 50 states. Northern states typically model their laws and boards after the NLRA and the NLRB. In other states, public workers have no right to establish a union as a legal entity. (About 40% of public employees in the USA do not have the right to organize a legally established union.)

Once the union has won the support of a majority of the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment. However, under the NLRA, if a minority of employees voted for a union, those employees can then form a union which represents the rights of only those members who voted for the union. This minority model was once widely used, but was discarded when unions began to consistently win majority support. Unions are beginning to revisit the "members only" model of unionism because of new changes to labor law which unions view as curbing workers' ability to organize.

The employer and the union write the terms and conditions of employment in a legally binding contract. When disputes arise over the contract, most contracts call for the parties to resolve their differences through a grievance process to see if the dispute can be mutually resolved. If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration, where the case is argued before a neutral third party.

In the 1940s and 1950s links to organized crime were discovered in U.S. unions, hurting their image.

Since the 1970s, union membership has been steadily declining in the private-sector while growing in the public sector.

Right-to-work statutes forbid unions from negotiating agency shops. Thus, while unions do exist in "right-to-work" states, they are typically weaker.

Members of labor unions enjoy "Weingarten Rights." If management questions the union member on a matter that may lead to discipline or other changes in working conditions, union members can request representation by a union representative. Weingarten Rights are named for the first Supreme Court decision to recognize those rights.

The NLRA goes farther in protecting the right of workers to organize unions. It protects the right of workers to engage in any "concerted activity" for mutual aid or protection. Thus, no union connection is needed. Concerted activity "in its inception involves only a speaker and a listener, for such activity is an indispensable preliminary step to employee self-organization."

Labor Education Programs in the United States

In the US, labor education programs such as the Harvard Trade Union Program created in 1942 by Harvard University professor John T. Dunlop sought to educate union members to deal with important contemporary workplace and labor law issues of the day. The Harvard Trade Union Program is now currently part of a broader initiative at Harvard Law School called the Labor and Worklife Program that deals with a wide variety of labor and employment issues from union pension investment funds to the effects of nanotechnology on labor markets and the workplace.

Jurisdiction of labor unions

Labor unions use the term jurisdiction to refer to their claims to represent workers who perform a certain type of work and the right of their members to perform such work. For example, the work of unloading containerized cargo at United States ports, which both the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have claimed rightfully should be assigned to workers they represent. A jurisdictional strike is a concerted refusal to work undertaken by a union to assert its members' right to such job assignments and to protest the assignment of disputed work to members of another union or to unorganized workers. Jurisdictional strikes occur most frequently in the United States in the construction industry.

Unions also use jurisdiction to refer to the geographical boundaries of their operations, as in those cases in which a national or international union allocates the right to represent workers among different local unions based on the place of those workers' employment, either along geographical lines or by adopting the boundaries between political jurisdictions.

Early Unions

Order of the Knights of St. Crispin

The Order of the Knights of St Crispin was founded in 1867 and claimed 50,000 members by 1870, by far the largest union in the country. But it was poorly organized and soon declined. They fought encroachments of machinery and unskilled labor on autonomy of skilled shoeworkers. One provision in the Crispin constitution explictly sought to limit the entry of "green hands" into the trade. But that failed because the new machines could be operated by semi-skilled workers and produce more shoes than hand sewing. The first local unions in the United States formed in the late 18th century, but the movement came into its own after the Civil War, when the short-lived National Labor Union (NLU) became the first federation of American unions.

Knights of Labor

The first effective labor organization that was more than regional in membership and influence was the Knights of Labor, organized in 1869. The Knights believed in the unity of the interests of all producing groups and sought to enlist in their ranks not only all laborers but everyone who could be truly classified as a producer. Under the leadership of Terrence Powderly they championed a variety of causes, many of them more political than industrial, and they hoped to gain their ends through politics and education rather than through economic coercion. Their big strikes failed and they collapsed in the wake of the Haymarket Riot) of 1886, when their message was compromised by bomb-throwing anarchists.

Violence, 1886-1894

See Haymarket Riot and Pullman Strike. More text to be added.

Rise of AFL

The American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers was a national federation of skilled workers' unions that set the organizational model that has lasted to the 21st century.

Labor History 1900-1932

Coal Strikes 1900-1902

see Coal Strike of 1902 The United Mine Workers was successful in its strike against soft coal (bituminous) mines in the Midwest in 1900, but its strike against the hard coal (anthracite) mines of Pennsylvania turned into a national political crisis in 1902. President Theodore Roosevelt brokered a compromise solution that kept the flow of coal going, and higher wages and shorter hours, but did not include recognition of the union as a bargaining agent.

Debs, Socialists, IWW and Dual Unionism

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members became known as "Wobblies", was founded in 1905 by a group of about 30 labor radicals. Among their most prominent leaders was William “Big Bill” Haywood. The IWW organized along the lines of industrial unionism rather than craft unionism; in fact, they went even further, pursuing the goal of "One Big Union" and the abolition of the wage system. Many, though probably not all, Wobblies favored anarcho-syndicalism. Most of the IWW’s organizing took place in the West, and most of its members were miners, lumbermen and cannery and dock workers. Dedicated to workplace democracy, it allowed both men and women as members and also crossed racial lines. At its peak it had 150,000 members, but it was fiercely repressed during, and especially after, World War I with many of its members killed, about 10,000 organisers imprisoned, and thousands more deported as foreign agitators. The IWW proved that unskilled workers could be organized and gave unskilled workers a sense of dignity and self-worth. The IWW survives today with about 2,000 members, but its significant impact was primarily in its first 15 years of existence.

Socialist Party

The Socialist Party of America was a coalition of local parties based in industrial cities, and usually was rooted in ethnic communities, especially German and Finnish. By 1912 they claimed more than a thousand locally elected officials in 33 states and 160 cities, especially the Midwest. Eugene Debs ran for president in 1900, 1904 and 1908 primarily to encourage the local effort, and he did so again in 1912. The party was factionalized. The conservatives, led by Victor Berger of Milwaukee who promoted progressive causes of efficiency and an end to corruption. The radicals wanted to overthrow capitalism, tried to infiltrate labor unions, and sought to cooperate with the IWW. With few exceptions the party had weak or nonexistent links to local labor unions. Immigration was an issue--the radicals saw immigrants as fodder for the war with capitalism, while conservatives complained the lowered wage rates and absorbed too many city resources. Many of these issues were heatedly debated at the First National Congress of the Socialist Party in 1910, and the national convention in Indianapolis in 1912. At the latter the radicals won an early test by seating Bill Haywood on the Executive Committee, by sending encouragement to western "Wobblies," and by a resolution seeming to favor industrial unionism. The conservatives counterattacked by amending the party constitution to expel any socialists who favored industrial sabotage or syndicalism (that is, the IWW), and who refused to participate in American elections. They adopted a conservative platform calling for cooperative organization of prisons, a national bureau of health, abolition of the Senate and the presidential veto, and a long list of progressive reforms that the Democratic party was known for. Debs did not attend--he saw his mission as keeping the disparate units together in the hope that someday a common goal would be found. There was little money--his campaign cost only $66,000, mostly for 3.5 million leaflets and travel to rallies organized by local groups. Debs criss-crossed the country, His biggest event was a speech to 15,000 in New York City. The crowd sang the "Marseillaise," and "International" as Emil Seidel, the vice-presidential candidate, boasted, "Only a year ago workingmen were throwing decayed vegetables and rotten eggs at us but now all is changed....Eggs are too high. There is a great giant growing up in this country that will someday take over the affairs of this nation. He is a little giant now but he is growing fast. The name of this little giant is socialism." Debs said that only the socialists represented labor; he condemned "Injunction Bill Taft"; ridiculed Roosevelt as "a charlatan, mountebank, and fraud, and his Progressive promises and pledges as the mouthings of a low and utterly unprincipled self seeker and demagogue." Debs insisted that the Democrats, Progressives and Republicans alike were financed by the trusts. Party newspapers spread the word--there were five English-language and eight foreign language dailies along with 262 English and 36 foreign language weeklies. Debs won 900,000 votes, about 6% of the total cast. The great majority of labor union members voted, as always, for one of the major parties.

Government and Labor

See National Civic Federation Injunction Norris-LaGuardia Act

In 1908 the U.S. Supreme Court decided the "Danbury Hatters’ Case". In 1902 the hatters’ union instituted a nationwide boycott of the hats made by a nonunion company in Connecticut. The owner Dietrich Loewe brought suit against the union for unlawfully combinations to restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Court ruled the union was subject to an injunction and liable for the payment of triple damages. In 1915 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes speaking for the Court again decided in favor of Loewe upholding a lower federal court ruling ordering the union to pay him damages of $252,130. (The cost of lawyers had already exceeded $100,000, paid by the AFL). This was not a typical case where a few union leaders were punished with short terms in jail, but that the life savings of several hundreds of the members were attached. It was a major precedent for lower court ruling and a grievance for the unions. The Clayton Act of 1914 presumably exempted unions from the antitrust prohibition and established for the first time the Congressional principle that, "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." However, judicial interpretation so weakened it that prosecutions of labor under the antitrust acts continued until the enactment of the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932.

See: Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908), 235 U.S. 522 (1915)

State legislation 1912-1918: 36 states adopted the principle of workmen's compensation for all industrial accidents. Also: prohibition of the use of an industrial poison, several states require one day's rest in seven, the beginning of effective prohibition of night work, of maximum limits upon the length of the working day, and of minimum wage laws for women.

AFL and Gompers

The AFL was Founded in 1881 by Samuel Gompers, like the NLU the AFL was a federation of unions. The AFL was a union of Skilled workers only, unskilled workers, women and African Americans were not allowed to join. From 1890 to 1917 the unionized wages rose from 17 dollars and 57 cents to 23 dollars and 98 cents and the average work week fell from 54.4 to 48.9 hours a week. The problem was that skilled workers were only 30% of the work force and that wasn’t enough to keep the AFL going.

Railroad Brotherhoods

One of the earliest Railroad Strikes was also one of the most successful. In 1885, the Knights of Labor led railroad workers to victory against Jay Gould and his entire Southwestern Railway system. The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, a nationwide railroad shop workers strike began on July 1. The immediate cause of the strike was the Railroad Labor Board's announcement that hourly wages would be cut by seven cents on July 1, which prompted a shop workers vote on whether or not to strike. The operators' union did not join in the strike, and the railroads employed strikebreakers to fill three-fourths of the roughly 400,000 vacated positions, increasing hostilities between the railroads and the striking workers. On September 1 a federal judge issued a sweeping injunction against striking, assembling, picketing, etc. colloquially known as the "Daugherty Injunction."

Unions bitterly resented the injunction; a few sympathy strikes shut down some railroads completely. The strike eventually died out as many shopmen made deals with the railroads on the local level. The often unpalatable concessions — coupled with memories of the violence and tension during the strike — soured relations between the railroads and the shopmen for years.

World War I

• this section is in progress

War Labor Administration

1. Bernard Baruch and WIB

1. AFL membership 2,371,434 in 1917.

1920s

see Great Railroad Strike of 1922

Restricting Immigration

See Immigration Act of 1924

National Origins Formula

Labor History 1932-1955

New Deal Labor Policy

see NRA National Labor Relations Act, 1935 Frances Perkins

John L. Lewis and CIO

John Llewellyn Lewis (1880-1969) was the autocratic president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960, and the driving force behind the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Using UMW organizers the new CIO established the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and organized millions of other industrial workers in the 1930s. A powerful speaker and strategist, Lewis did not hesitate to shut down coal production—the nation's main energy and heating source—to get his demands.

Lewis threw his support behind FDR at the outset of the New Deal. After the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 Lewis traded on the tremendous appeal that Roosevelt had with workers in those days, sending organizers into the coal fields to tell workers that "The President wants you to join the Union." His UMW was one of FDR's main financial supporters in 1936, contributing over $500,000.

Lewis expanded his base by organizing the so-called "captive mines," those held by the steel producers such as U.S. Steel. That required in turn organizing the steel industry, which had defeated union organizing drives in 1892 and 1919 and which had resisted all organizing efforts since then fiercely. The task of organizing steelworkers, on the other hand, put Lewis at odds with the AFL, which looked down on both industrial workers and the industrial unions that represented all workers in a particular industry, rather than just those in a particular skilled trade or craft.

This dispute came to a head at the AFL’s convention in 1935. Lewis called together leaders of seven other unions within the AFL to form a group known as the Committee for Industrial Organizing to push the AFL to change its policy opposing industrial organizing. William Green, now President of the AFL, treated this group as an enemy within the AFL. Anatagonism escalated until the CIO, now calling itself the Congress of Industrial Organizations, formally established itself as a rival union federation in 1938, with Lewis as its first president. Lewis, in fact, was the CIO: his UMWA provided the great bulk of the financial resources that the CIO poured into organizing drives by the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the USWA, the Textile Workers Union and other newly formed or struggling unions. Lewis hired back many of the people he had exiled from the UMWA in the 1920s to lead the CIO and placed his protégé Philip Murray at the head of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. Lewis played the leading role in the negotiations that led to the successful conclusion of the Flint sit-down strike conducted by the UAW in 1936-1937 and in the Chrysler sit-down strike that followed.

The CIO's actual membership (as opposed to publicity figures) was 2,850,000 for February 1942. This included 537,000 members of the UAW, just under 500,000 Steel Workers, almost 300,000 members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, about 180,000 Electrical Workers, and about 100,000 Rubber Workers. The CIO also included 550,000 members of the United Mine Workers, which did not formally withdraw from the CIO until later in the year. The remaining membership of 700,000 was scattered among thirty-odd smaller unions. (Galenson, p. 585)

Upsurge in World War II

Both the AFL and CIO supported Roosevelt in 1940, with 75% of more of their votes, millions of dollars, and tens of thousands of precinct workers. However, John L. Lewis opposed Roosevelt on foreign policy grounds. (Communists in the US supported the Soviet Union in its non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, and denounced Roosevelt's efforts to help Britain.) He took the UMWA out of the CIO and rejoined the AFL. All labor unions strongly supported the war effort after June 1941 (when Germany invaded the Soviet Union). Left-wing activists crushed wildcat strikes. Nonetheless, Lewis realized that he had enormous leverage. In 1943, the middle of the war, when the rest of labor was observing a policy against strikes, Lewis led the UMWA out on a twelve-day strike for higher wages; the depth of public dismay—even hatred—of Lewis was palpable. In November 1943 the Fortune poll asked, "Are there any prominent individuals in this country who you feel might be harmful to the future of the country unless they are curbed?" 36% spontaneously named Lewis. (Next came 3% who named Roosevelt.) As a result the Conservative coalition in Congress was able to pass anti-union legislation, leading to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

Walter Reuther and UAW

The Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37 was the decisive event in the formation of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). During the war Walter Reuther took control of the UAW, and soon led major strikes in 1946. He ousted the Communists from the positions of power, especially at the Ford local. He was one of the most articulate and energetic leaders of the CIO, and of the merged AFL-CIO. Using brilliant negotiatiating tactics he achieved high pay and high benefits for his members, and high profits for the Big Three automakers. The formula was fatal when the Germans and Japanese started exporting cars in the 1970s, and led to a series of crises and shrinkage of the union.

PAC and New Deal Coalition

Political action committees; Labor and Democratic party. to be written

Taft-Hartley Act

The Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 revised the Wagner Act to include restrictions on unions as well as management. It was a response to public demands for action after the wartime coal strikes and the postwar strikes in steel, autos and other industries were perceived to have damaged the economy, not to mention a threatened 1946 rail strike that would have shut down the national economy. It was bitterly fought by unions, vetoed by President Harry S. Truman, and passed over his veto. Repeated union efforts to repeal or modify it always failed.

The Act, officially known as the Labor-Management Relations Act, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred Hartley. President Truman described the act as a "slave-labor bill" in his veto, but he did use it. Congress overrode the veto on June 23, 1947, establishing the act as a law.

The Taft-Hartley Act amended the Wagner Act, officially known as the National Labor Relations Act, of 1935. The amendments added to the NLRA a list of prohibited actions, or "unfair labor practices", on the part of unions. The NLRA had previously prohibited only unfair labor practices committed by employers. It prohibited jurisdictional strikes, in which a union strikes in order to pressure an employer to assign particular work to the employees that union represents, and secondary boycotts and "common situs" picketing, in which unions picket, strike, or refuse to handle the goods of a business with which they have no primary dispute but which is associated with a targeted business. A later statute, the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, passed in 1959, tightened these restrictions on secondary boycotts still further.

The Act outlawed closed shops, which were contractual agreements that required an employer to hire only union members. Union shops, in which new recruits must join the union within a certain amount of time, are permitted, but only as part of a collective bargaining agreement and only if the contract allows the worker at least thirty days after the date of hire or the effective date of the contract to join the union. The National Labor Relations Board and the courts have added other restrictions on the power of unions to enforce union security clauses and have required them to make extensive financial disclosures to all members as part of their duty of fair representation. On the other hand, a few years after the passage of the Act Congress repealed the provisions requiring a vote by workers to authorize a union shop, when it became apparent that workers were approving them in virtually every case.

The amendments also authorized individual states to outlaw union security clauses entirely in their jurisdictions by passing "right-to-work" laws. Currently all of the states in the Deep South and a number of traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, Plains and Rocky Mountains regions have right-to-work laws.

The amendments required unions and employers to give sixty days' notice before they may undertake strikes or other forms of economic action in pursuit of a new collective bargaining agreement; it did not, on the other hand, impose any "cooling-off period" after a contract expired. Although the Act also authorized the President to intervene in strikes or potential strikes that create a national emergency, a reaction to the national coal miners' strikes called by the United Mine Workers of America in the 1940s, the President has used that power less and less frequently in each succeeding decade.

Labor History 1955-2005

AFL and CIO reunite, 1955; Change to Win breaks away, 2005

Teamsters and issue of Corruption

Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

Rise of Public Sector Unions

Reagan and Corporate Attacks on Unions

Decline of Private Sector Unions

NAFTA and threat of International Trade

Labor Unions: International comparisons

see Labor Unions: International comparisons

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See also

• Timeline of labor unions in the United States
• List of strikes
• Union Affiliation by State

External links

• Weingarten from Tate & Renner Attorneys at Law
• National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) rights www.workplacefairness.org
• Connecticut Laborers' Political League

Notes

1. "Union Members Summary". United States Department of Labor. Retrieved 2006-06-18.
2. Melvyn Dubofsky and Foster Rhea Dulles, Labor in America: A History. Harlan Davidson; 7th edition (2004) ISBN 0882959980 �UNIQ30559642314e5bc2-HTMLCommentStrip5a4cd1b410bbd15200000002
3. NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975); Tate & Renner Attorneys at Law
4. Root-Carlin, Inc., 92 NLRB 1313, 27 LRRM, 1235, citing NLRB v. City Yellow Cab Co. (6th Cir. 1965), 344 F.2d 575, 582; www.workplacefairness.org

References

To 1900

• Commons, John R. History of Labour in the United States - Vol. 2 1860-1896 (1918)
• John R. Commons, "American Shoemakers, 1648-1895: A Sketch of Industrial Evolution," Quarterly Journal of Economics 24 (November, 1909), 39-83. in JSTOR
• Grob, Gerald N. Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement, 1865-1900 (1961)
• John P. Hall, "The Knights of St. Crispin in Massachusetts, 1869-1878," Journal of Economic History 18 (June, 1958), p 161-175
• Laslett, John H. M. Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881-1924 (1970)
• Mandel, Bernard. Samuel Gompers: A Biography (1963)
• Orth, Samuel P. The Armies of Labor: A Chronicle of the Organized Wage-Earners (1919) short overview
• Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993)]
• Weir, Robert E. Beyond Labor's Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor (1996)
• Bibliography of online resources on railway labor in late 19th century

Primary sources

• Gompers, Samuel. Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography (1925)

1900-1932

• Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-33 (1966)
• Brody, David. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919 (1965)
• Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Tine. John L. Lewis: A Biography (1986)
• Brody, David. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919 (1965)
• Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering & Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945 (1991)
• Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993)
• Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics, 1920-1935 (1994)
• Greene, Julie . Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881-1917 (1998)
• Hooker, Clarence. Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910-1927: Ford Workers in the Model T Era (1997)
• Laslett, John H. M. Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881-1924 (1970)
• Karson, Marc. American Labor Unions and Politics, 1900-1918 (1958)
• McCartin, Joseph A. ’Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921 (1997)
• Mandel, Bernard. Samuel Gompers: A Biography (1963)
• Meyer, Stephen. The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921 (1981)
• Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875-1920 (1986)
• Orth, Samuel P. The Armies of Labor: A Chronicle of the Organized Wage-Earners (1919) short overview
• Quint, Howard H. The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement (1964)
• Warne, Colston E. ed. The Steel Strike of 1919 (1963), primary and secondary documents
• Zieger, Robert. Republicans and Labor, 1919-1929. (1969)

Primary sources

• Gompers, Samuel. Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography (1925)

1932 - 1955

• Bernstein, Irving. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (1970)
• Campbell, D'Ann. "Sisterhood versus the Brotherhoods: Women in Unions" Women at War With America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (1984).
• Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Time John L. Lewis (1986).
• Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering & Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945 (1991), social history
• Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993).
• Galenson, Walter. The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 (1960)
• Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics, 1920-1935 (1994)
• Jensen, Richard J. "The Causes and Cures of Unemployment in the Great Depression," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 19 (1989) p. 553-83
• Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. (1999) recent narrative.
• Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (2003)
• Miller, Sally M., and Daniel A. Cornford eds. American Labor in the Era of World War II (1995), essays by historians, mostly on California
• Seidman; Joel. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen: The Internal Political Life of a National Union (1962)
• Vittoz, Stanley. New Deal Labor Policy and the American Industrial Economy (1987)
• Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935-1955 (1995)

Fair Employment FEPC

• William J. Collins, "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review 91:1 (March 2001), pp. 272-286
• Andrew Edmund Kersten, Race, Jobs, and the War: The FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-46 (2000) online review
• Merl E. Reed. Seedtime for the Modern Civil Rights Movement: The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1941-1946 (1991)

Taft-Hartley and the NLRA

• Abraham, Steven E. "The Impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on the Balance of Power in Industrial Relations" American Business Law Journal Vol. 33, 1996
• Ballam, Deborah A. "The Impact of the National Labor Relations Act on the U.S. Labor Movement" American Business Law Journal, Vol. 32, 1995
• Brooks, George W., Milton Derber, David A. McCabe, Philip Taft. Interpreting the Labor Movement (1952)
• Gilbert J. Gall, The Politics of Right to Work: The Labor Federations as Special Interests, 1943-1979 (1988)
• Fred A. Hartley Jr. and Robert A. Taft. Our New National Labor Policy: The Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps (1948)
• Lee, R. Alton. Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Mandate (1966)
• Harry A. Millis and Emily Clark Brown. From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley: A Study of National Labor Policy and Labor Relations (1950)

Walter Reuther and UAW

Secondary sources

• Boyle, Kevin. The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968 (1995)
• Kornhauser, Arthur et al. When Labor Votes: A Study of Auto Workers (1956)
• Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (1995)
• Lichtenstein, Nelson and Stephen Meyer, eds. On the Line: Essays in the History of Auto Work (1989)

Primary sources

• Christman, Henry M. ed. Walter P. Reuther: Selected Papers (1961)

1955 - 2006

• Taylor E. Dark; The Unions and the Democrats: An Enduring Alliance Cornell University Press. 1999
• Rick Fantasia & Kim Voss. Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2004)
• Galenson, Walter; The American Labor Movement, 1955-1995 (1996)
• Arthur J. Goldberg; AFL-CIO, Labor United (1956)
• Leiter, Robert D. The Teamsters Union: A Study of Its Economic Impact (1957)
• Jo-Ann Mort (Ed), Not Your Father's Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO" (2002)

• History of labor relations in the United States
• Trade unions of the United States
• Economic history of the United States
• Trade unions