# Labor Movement The American labor movement is the **longest-running resistance to concentrated economic power** in US history — from the first trade unions in the 1790s through the militant industrialization struggles of the Gilded Age, the [[New Deal]] breakthrough, the postwar golden age, the Reagan-era destruction, and the current revival attempts. It is the resistance counterpart to the [[Gilded Age Plutocracy]] entry: where that entry documents how wealth captures political power, this entry documents how workers have organized to challenge that capture — and how the right systematically dismantled their capacity to do so. ## The Arc ### Phase 1: Formation and Repression (1790s–1930s) Early American unions faced a legal system designed to crush them: - **Conspiracy doctrine:** Until the 1840s, unions were treated as criminal conspiracies under common law. Workers organizing for higher wages could be prosecuted. - **Injunctions:** Federal courts routinely issued injunctions against strikes, picketing, and boycotts. The [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] (1890), intended to break monopolies, was used more frequently against unions than against corporations. - **Private violence:** Companies hired Pinkerton agents, private militias, and strikebreakers. The [[Homestead Strike]] (1892), [[Pullman Strike]] (1894), Ludlow Massacre (1914), and Battle of Blair Mountain (1921) demonstrated that capital would deploy lethal force against organizing workers. **The IWW (Wobblies):** The Industrial Workers of the World (founded 1905) represented the most radical wing — organizing across race and skill boundaries, advocating for industrial unionism and worker control. The IWW was systematically destroyed through government prosecution ([[Espionage Act]], Palmer Raids), vigilante violence, and internal divisions. ### Phase 2: The New Deal Breakthrough (1933–1947) **[[National Labor Relations Act]] (National Labor Relations Act, 1935):** The most important labor legislation in American history — guaranteed workers the right to organize, bargain collectively, and strike. Created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to enforce these rights. The Wagner Act produced the most rapid expansion of unionization in American history: - Union membership: **3 million (1933) → 15 million (1945)** - By 1945, approximately **35%** of the non-agricultural workforce was unionized **The CIO:** The Congress of Industrial Organizations (split from AFL, 1935) organized the mass production industries — auto, steel, rubber, electrical — that AFL craft unions had ignored. The CIO's industrial unionism brought millions of unskilled and semi-skilled workers (including, significantly, Black workers in Northern factories) into the labor movement. ### Phase 3: The Golden Age and the Counterattack (1945–1981) **[[Taft-Hartley Act]] (1947):** The first major counterattack — passed over Truman's veto by a Republican Congress. Key provisions: - **Section 14(b):** Allowed states to pass "right-to-work" laws prohibiting union security agreements (today, 27 states have right-to-work laws) - **Banned secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes** — eliminating labor's most powerful solidarity tactics - **Required union officers to sign anti-communist affidavits** — splitting and weakening the CIO - **Allowed presidential injunctions** against strikes that threatened "national health or safety" Taft-Hartley didn't destroy the labor movement immediately, but it created the **structural conditions** for its long-term decline by removing its most effective tools while leaving employer resistance tools intact. **Peak unionization (1954):** Union membership reached **34.8%** of the workforce — the high-water mark. From this peak, every subsequent decade saw decline. ### Phase 4: The Reagan Destruction (1981–present) **PATCO strike (August 1981):** When the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization struck for better working conditions, Reagan fired all 11,345 striking controllers and banned them from federal service. PATCO wasn't the largest or most important union — but Reagan's response sent an unmistakable signal to private-sector employers: **the federal government would support aggressive union-busting.** **The consequences of PATCO:** | Metric | 1980 | 2024 | |--------|------|------| | Union membership (% of workforce) | 23% | ~10% | | Private sector union membership | 20% | **6%** | | Major work stoppages per year | 187 (1980) | ~30 | | Real median hourly wage growth | Rising | Stagnant (1979–2014) | The decline in unionization maps almost perfectly onto the rise in income inequality — a correlation documented by economists across the political spectrum. The KB's [[American Tax History]] documents the Mellon Cycle from the revenue side; the labor movement's decline documents the same phenomenon from the wage side. Tax cuts for the wealthy AND the destruction of worker bargaining power are two mechanisms of the same wealth-concentration machine. ### Phase 5: The Revival Attempts (2018–present) A surge in organizing activity, particularly among young workers in previously non-union sectors: - **Starbucks:** Workers United organizing campaign (2021–present), 400+ stores petitioned, faced aggressive company opposition - **Amazon:** JFK8 Staten Island warehouse voted to unionize (2022) — first Amazon union in the US; ALU organized by Chris Smalls, a fired Amazon employee - **Media:** Conde Nast, New York Times tech workers, digital media unionization wave - **Higher education:** Graduate student unions, adjunct faculty organizing - **Tech:** Google, Apple retail, game industry organizing - **Public approval:** Gallup polling shows union approval at **67-71%** (2022-2024) — highest since the 1960s The gap between **public approval** (high) and **union density** (historically low) represents the distance between popular support for labor and the institutional/legal/employer barriers to translating that support into organization. ## The Right's Anti-Labor Architecture The destruction of the labor movement was not natural decline — it was the product of a **coordinated institutional strategy** documented throughout the KB: | Institution | Anti-Labor Function | |------------|-------------------| | [[Heritage Foundation]] | Policy blueprints for right-to-work, "labor reform," NLRB defunding | | [[Cato Institute]] | Libertarian intellectual justification for deregulating labor markets | | [[Koch Network]] | Funded right-to-work campaigns in state after state; [[Americans for Prosperity]] as the field operation | | ALEC | Model right-to-work legislation; "paycheck protection" laws limiting union political spending | | National Right to Work Committee | Single-issue organization dedicated to eliminating union security | | [[Federalist Society]] judges | Narrowed NLRA protections; *Janus v. AFSCME* (2018) eliminated public-sector agency fees | The *Janus* decision (2018) — decided by a Federalist Society-shaped 5-4 majority — ruled that public-sector unions cannot charge agency fees to non-members, effectively making every public-sector workplace "right-to-work." The decision was the culmination of a decades-long litigation strategy explicitly designed to weaken public-sector unions, which are the last significant concentration of organized labor. ## Why Labor Matters for the Resistance The labor movement provides something no other resistance institution does: **organized economic power**. Legal organizations (ACLU, NAACP) provide litigation capacity. Advocacy organizations ([[Brennan Center]], Indivisible) provide research and mobilization. But only unions provide the capacity to **withdraw cooperation from the economic system** — Sharp's most powerful category of nonviolent action. The right understands this, which is why the destruction of unions has been a higher priority than the destruction of any other resistance institution. You can coexist with the ACLU. You cannot coexist with a strong labor movement and maintain the concentration of wealth and power the KB documents. ## See Also - [[Labor Day]] — the 1882 New York parade and the 1894 federal holiday, signed during the Pullman Strike - [[Resistance Hub]] — Section overview - [[Gilded Age Plutocracy]] — The economic power the labor movement challenges - [[American Tax History]] — The Mellon Cycle from the revenue side; labor decline from the wage side - [[Starve the Beast]] — The fiscal strategy that depends on weak labor - [[198 Methods of Nonviolent Action]] — Strikes as Category 2 noncooperation - [[Heritage Foundation]] — Anti-labor policy infrastructure - [[Cato Institute]] — Anti-labor intellectual infrastructure