Why Labor Remained Weak
Despite their efforts, labor organizations achieved few meaningful gains by the century's end. Wages barely rose, legislative victories were rarely enforced, and most workers had less political power and workplace control than before industrialization. Several key factors contributed to labor's weakness.
Principal labor organizations represented only a small percentage of the industrial workforce. They routinely excluded unskilled workers, women, blacks, and recent immigrants, severely limiting their potential membership and power. These divisions, combined with tensions between different ethnic and racial groups, kept the labor movement fragmented and ineffective. Women eventually responded to this exclusion by forming the Women's Trade Union League in 1903.
The constantly shifting nature of the workforce made organizing extremely difficult. Many immigrants planned to work temporarily before returning home, giving them little incentive to join unions. Other workers frequently moved between jobs and locations in search of better opportunities, making sustained organization nearly impossible.
Think critically: The exclusion of women, immigrants, and people of color from major unions not only limited labor's power but also reflected and reinforced social hierarchies. How might labor history have been different if these organizations had been more inclusive from the beginning?
Most fundamentally, corporations possessed overwhelming advantages: substantial financial resources, sympathetic local judges, and the ability to call upon state militias or federal troops when threatened. When workers struck, companies could hire strikebreakers or simply wait them out as desperate families exhausted their savings. This combination of corporate resources, government support, and labor's internal divisions ensured that industrialists maintained the upper hand throughout this period.