The Labor Unions In Carl Degler's Out Of Our Past

The Labor Unions

The labor unions of the 19th century revolutionized the expanding and demanding industrial capitalism, into modern day understanding of industrialization. Carl Degler, writer of the Out of Our Past (1959) establish the ideology that labor unions are both conservatives and capitalists. First of all, a conservative is an individual that wants to preserve the old ways also known as the status quo within the workplace, which is self-employment and self-economic improvement through independent labor or small scale manufacture. Also conservatives reject any form of capitalism. However, capitalist stand by the system that the country 's industrial and trade system should be managed by private owners, which implies the function of

Therefore, Degler states, ¨Unions were labor´s protection against the force of industrialization¨ he continues with ¨all labor unions, at bottom, are conservatives...essentially reactions against a developing capitalism.¨ (Degler, 283) Therefore, the foundation of all labor unions sustain the values and goals of conservative radicals, who object the exploitation of big businesses upon workers. Therefore, the purpose of these unions is to maintain individualism within workers. One of several union labors which achieved great success was the Knights of Labor (1869), the organization accepted membership from any individual within the working-class who suffered under the hand of industries.The inclusive factor of the labor activist group allowed the institution to rapidly grow; their members were deskilling white men, women and African Americans who served as domestic servants. Nonetheless, the labor union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) took a different approach; they formed an organization based only on white skilled workers such as ironworkers and bricklayers. As a result, their numbers were fairly low but overall the organization was nationally

As states by Degler, ¨.. The A.F. of L. presented no threat to capitalism.¨ (Degler, 290) The AFL was an organization that refused to go against industrialization but rather establish reforms protecting workers in order to save aspects of humanity within the deskilling labor force. Therefore, capitalism is considered as a force of ¨labor that had been atomized in pursuit of an individualist economy¨ (Degler, 284). As a result, the demands of the AFL were pure-and-simple, such as: low working hours, specifically eight hours per day. The structure of the AFL followed the doctrine, pure-and-simple, a police adopted by president Gompers, ¨pure¨ signifies the members and ¨simple¨ embody goals; this doctrine was highly successful. Therefore, the AFL success and victories, propelled it to become one of the nation 's leading voices of