American industry during the era from the late 19th century to the 1930s - Essay Example

The prime purpose of the paper is to present and discuss about the influence of managers and workers towards controlling of wage structure and application of newly used methods other than strike. The history of labour in United States is determined as the history of working people and organized labour. The umbrella labour federations of organized unions consist of citywide federations and AFL-CIO have merged, evolved, split, participate and fought against the periodic federal government interference and changing priorities.

In 1894, Samuel Gompers was elected as AFL-CIO leader. At the time of emergence of mechanization, it has become pivotal to replace machines from highly skilled craftspeople. At the time of late 19th century to early part of 20th century, most of the Americans left small towns and farms to work in factories which was effectively categorized by steep hierarchy and organized by mass production. The effect of industrialization has been enormous on working people and result of the alteration of worker lead to the increase in the competition of jobs, loss of the bargaining power and lack of personality on relationships between employer-employee in any new organization1.

Unskilled labours were paid less. Moreover, the working condition was often dangerous and unhealthy. The increase of industrialization and rapid upsurge of economic growth meant that percentage of wages growth from 1860 to 1890 in United States was around 60%2. The wage structures for American skilled workers are much higher than that of other countries in Europe. Under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, the Federation of Organized Labour and Trade Unions came in to existence. It has been estimated that between year 1881 and 1905, more than 37,000 strikes were organized by the labour unions.

The influence of managers and workers has been supreme towards the formation of strikes. The main goal for occurrence of routine events of