The first associations of workers, merchant guilds and craft guilds, formed during the Middle Ages in Europe Guild. Merchant guilds, which arose in the 11th century, consisted of the merchants and traders in a city who banded together. Craft guilds, first formed in the 12th century, included people who were engaged in a particular craft, and they gradually deprived merchant guilds of their power. In time, journeymen members of craft unions organized their own associations to seek higher wages and improved working conditions. These associations are considered the forerunners of labor unions because of their emphasis on wages and working conditions.
The earliest actual labor unions arose in Western Europe and the United States at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. They were formed by skilled crafts workers in reaction to the rapid changes in the economic environment brought about by industrialization. The concentration of work in large factories left workers increasingly dependent upon their employers (Green, 35-37).
Labor unions are groups or clubs of workers and employees who bond together to get good working conditions, fair pay, and fair hours for their labor. For example, in a newspaper, all the people who work the presses might all belong to one union. All of the artists, who are responsible for the artistic layout, might belong to another. These unions are usually joined together, and most unions in America are some branch of the largest labor union organization in the United States, the AFL-CIO. The unions of the workers at a certain business or factory might get together with the management for a period of time to talk about a contract. This time is known as negotiation. The union will tell the management what it wants its workers getting paid, and then the management.....
