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Running head: THE DRAMATIC RISE
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The Dramatic Rise
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THE DRAMATIC RISE
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Introduction
Unionism refers to the laws and practices of trade unions especially the ones that deal
with protecting and bettering the rights of workers. The struggle for the right to unionize was a
remarkable event in the U.S history labor movement. It involved overcoming resistance from
corporations and also cultural divisions within the working class. Unionism in the United States
took place at a time when there were large numbers of strikes and criticisms of the prevailing
order were widespread in the working class. This period between, 1920 and 1945 is significant in
understanding labor history in the United States. This paper outlines the key factors that existed
during this period, and that led to the dramatic rise of unions.

Background
In the late 1930s, America’s workforce organized themselves into industrial unions. They
allied themselves with Franklin Roosevelt who was the then president of the United States; they
organized the country towards a better democratic and economic order. The beginning of this
transformation was the many strikes that mobilized a lot of workers in late 1934 (Rosenzweig &
David, 2008). Most new congress members supported Roosevelt; they were in favor of
industrial democracy. They hoped this would limit business power, increase government social
expenditure and develop labor a voice. Roosevelt and his supporters pushed their agenda through
Congress after which he was re-elected on a landslide victory. Encouraged workers started
strikes and convened a powerful set of trade unions. The New Deal coalition dominated politics
in America for almost five decades and workers took this chance to put working class voters at
the core of it. Although the New deal encountered bitter opposition a few years later, the culture
that engaged it had already taken a step forward.

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Contributing Factors
Union membership has grown in a few insurgencies or has been caused by some factors.
The first was the movement for the eight hour day and the huge growth of the Knights of labor
which happened in the 1880s. The first union brought white and black workers, men and women
together. In the early 1890s, there was a counter attack to repress the unions. By 1897, only
350,000 workers were still in the unions. There was a huge growth of socialist influence in the
working class between 1900 and 1920 leading to attempts to build fresh industrial unions. There
was then an immense strike wave from 1915 to 1921 when manual and service workers in the
U.S were on strike which led to an increase in union membership in the USA by almost 200%
(Brinkley et al., 1994).

Unemployment remained high in 1935. New dealers blamed under-consumption which
was a chronic weakness in consumer demand caused by low wages, an inequitable distribution of
income, and a capitalist system that was no longer growing. In a burst of reform that has since
been named the Second New Deal, FDR and most Democrats pushed for measures that would
aid workers to start trade unions, get government-paid jobs and have a dignified retirement. Most
of the women and the Black Americans never really benefited from these trade unions but still
did continue supporting (Collier & Collier, 2002). But later Harry Hopkins Works Projects (later
projects) Administration (WPA) was the importance of these new programs. WPA offered jobs
that were more productive as opposed to relief. Schools and hospitals were constructed and preexistent ones improved by WPA workers helping employees to see themselves less of welfare
cases and more of workers and citizens. Their work was to organize unions, lobby for better pay
and the continuation of the program. Most western nations like Great Britain, Germany and the

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Scandinavian democracies built goodwill states that offered their workers protection against the
dangers of a market economy; unemployment, sickness, old age insecurity and the loss of the
family breadwinner. Due to the failure of the of the Americans to establish a similar system of
the universal union organizations who were going to protect its workers against exploitation thus
veterans of that period, such as secretary of labor Frances Perkins viewed the second deal as a
platform to compensate for that failure. A women’s network of new dealers and social reformers
(including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt) joined forces to press for the enacting of laws that
would protect women as well as male workers from destitution (Zieger, 1994).

Gender and race in the new deal was another factor that leads to unionization in the
United States. The social act provided far less generous and equitable payments for the elderly
and the poor who had previously been encountering exploitation due to their age and gender,
women actually were the ones who faced all the exploitation as compared to men who could
easily fight over to get their needs straight while women hid behind fear and ignorance as they
were regarded as primitive. The new social insurance law provided matching funds to the states
to finance an Aid to the Dependent Children program, but the states did not treat these benefits as
a guaranteed entitlement. A woman with dependent children recei...