Alien Labor Movement Analysis

1872 Words8 Pages

During the interwar years, workers in the United States faced multitudes of oppression. Many hardships were difficult for the workers to overcome because of the lack of government intervention and organization by the workers. The lack of legislation to protect workers and the lack of planning on the workers’ part made the prevalence of strong unions scarce. It was not until the 1930s that the government had finally begun to take action and the workers realized that they needed to efficiently work together. Gradually, both the government and the workers would try to correct the issues associated with the absence of effective unions. Without the aid of the government and unity amongst themselves, the workers had almost nowhere to turn to. Due to the changes in government action and the revolution of worker mentality in the labor movement, the workers were eventually unshackled from the chains of capitalist despotism and were slowly but surely able to practice industrial democracy by the onset of WWII. One major reason for the workers’ initial failure to organize was because leaders of industry held the vast majority of wealth and power. Welfare capitalism, or capitalism that is concerned with the social and economic welfare of the worker (Investopedia), played a major role in shaping the relationship between workers …show more content…

Xenophobia and the the immigrants less than sufficient knowledge of English, along with the Alien Labor Act of 1931 in California, kept many of the workers out of government jobs (Martinez, October 1). The government enforced discrimination and the workers did nothing to combat the the unfair treatment that they were facing. Since many of the workers did not know English, it might have been difficult for workers from different backgrounds to communicate, much less unionize. At this point, unionization seemed even more

Open Document