Question

What do you think were some reasons why the courts at first tended to support capital against labor in the early 19th century? Why do you think that view gradually changed?

Answer 1

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Causes courts at first tended to support capital against labor in the early 19th century

Abstract

The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.

When American Revolution started in 1880,These reform movements might have seemed at odds with trade unionism, aiming as they did at the cooperative commonwealth rather than a higher wage, appealing broadly to all “producers” rather than strictly to wageworker, and eschewing the trade union reliance on the strike and boycott. But contemporaries saw no contradiction: trade unionism tended to the workers’ immediate needs, labor reform to their higher hopes. The two were held to be strands of a single movement, rooted in a common working-class constituency and to some degree sharing a common leadership. But equally important, they were strands that had to be kept operationally separate and functionally distinct.

Strikes, Boycotts, and Sabotage are the main Reason

The most frequently employed technique of workers was the STRIKE. Withholding labor from management would, in theory, force the company to suffer great enough financial losses that they would agree to worker terms. Strikes have been known in America since the colonial age, but their numbers grew larger in the Gilded Age.

Most 19th century strikes were not successful, so unions thought of other means. If the workers at a shoe factory could garner enough sympathy from the local townspeople, a BOYCOTT could achieve desirable results. The union would make its case to the town in the hope that no one would buy any shoes from the factory until the owners agreed to a pay raise. Boycotts could be successful in a small community where the factory was dependent upon the business of a group of people in close proximity

In desperate times, workers would also resort to illegal means if necessary. For example, SABOTAGE of factory equipment was not unknown. Occasionally, the foreman or the owner might even be the victims of worker-sponsored violence.

Owners had strategies of their own. If a company found itself with a high inventory, the boss might afford to enact a LOCKOUT, which is a reverse strike. In this case, the owner tells the employees not to bother showing up until they agree to a pay cut. Sometimes when a new worker was hired the employee was forced to sign a YELLOW-DOG CONTRACT, or an ironclad oath swearing that the employee would never join a union.

Strikes could be countered in a variety of ways. The first measure was usually to hire strikebreakers, or SCABS, to take the place of the regular labor force. Here things often turned violent. The crowded cities always seemed to have someone hopeless enough to "CROSS THE PICKET LINE" during a strike. The striking workers often responded with fists, occasionally even leading to death.

Prior to the 20th century the government never sided with the union in a labor dispute. Bosses persuaded the courts to issue injunctions to declare a strike illegal. If the strike continued, the participants would be thrown into prison. When all these efforts failed to break a strike, the government at all levels would be willing to send a militia to regulate as in the case of the Great Upheaval.

After The Labor Law Reform Act is done in 1970's it started to ease the strict rules that were imposed on industrialist and nation focused on capital building

Corporator were bolstered in their efforts by the full support of Business Roundtable lawyers, who provided 65 time-consuming amendments and an Employee Bill of Rights that were introduced for debate. Along the way, organized labor offered further compromises, exempting even more businesses, but the filibuster still could not be broken. The bill was recommitted to the Senate Committee on Human Resources for further review in late June, never to emerge again. The corporate community won and hence court had considered the opinion of corporate regarding building capital and wealth for nation first priority instead of rights of labor

Changes in view of labor reforms

The relatively new high tech sector, typically dealing with the creation, design, development, and engineering of computer hardware and software products, has typically not been unionized as it is considered white-collar jobs, often with high pay rates and benefits. There has been worker activism to try to get the employer to change their practices related to labor, such as a November 2018 walkout at Google by 20,000 employees to make the company change its policy on sexual harassment.

However, these efforts have traditionally stopped short of the need for unionization, and achieving the scale of employee involvement to bring a union to their workplace can be difficult due to the numerous benefits these employees may already have and the blue-collar nature that union association may bring

However the laws and regulation are more positive towards the rights of labor in todays corporate world after the activism and efforts of labor unionization of recent updates

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