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Importance of labor relations
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Imagine a workforce without labor laws. Massive companies would still be in control of the major products, creating a nightmare for the American people. Workers would be drastically underpaid for their exhausting labor; children would still feel forced to work to help support their families. Now imagine a world without food safety laws. Meat packing companies could put ingredients in the product without labeling. They could even include toxic chemicals without any major government and legal repercussions. Not many people realize it, but these two simple laws are taken for granted. Barrack Obama displays this perfectly: “It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.” While the Union played a large part in securing labor laws and food safety requirements, there was one person who gave the much-needed monumental push for even more human rights. That person is author and human rights activist, Upton Sinclair. Without Upton Sinclair’s literature the United States would not have the same human rights as today.
Upton Sinclair lived in a problematic world as a child. He was born during the 1870s in New York, which was the time of the Long Depression. As referenced from its name, the Depression was long, but was not as economically catastrophic as the Great Depression (Long). The Depression had a horrendous impact on the Sinclair family. Poverty continuously plagued them, threatening to push them off the brink of starvation (Simkin). There was another pressing issue the family had to deal with: Sinclair’s father, Sinclair Sr., was an alcoholic (Simkin). Sinclair Sr. had trou...
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...tion. Without him, the reaction would never have started. He was also the first person meat packing companies and their quality of product (Upton). Without Sinclair’s investigative work, the discoveries could have been discovered much later, meaning more outrageous uncleanliness could have developed. Sinclair was of utmost importance in his time.
Upton Sinclair’s impact on society was so immense, human rights and food regulation would not be the same without him. There was no author like him in his time. He had to go against his society. He stood up for his opinions, even when people were telling him they were no good. Think about it: if Upton Sinclair had not voiced his opinion, there could still be inadequate standards of human rights and food preparation. Never take those for granted, because a major advancement can always happen from a minor decision.
Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20th 1978. Sinclair grew up in a broken household; his father was an alcohol salesman and killed himself drinking. While his mother would not even think about drinking alcohol. So these personalities naturally clashed. So Sinclair found some solace in books, Sinclair was a natural writer and he began publishing at the young age of fifteen years old. Sinclair started off going to school at a small college by the name of New York City College. This was just temporary as Sinclair would need time and money to move higher up to a form of better education. So as a result Sinclair took the initiative and he started writing columns on ethnic jokes and hack fiction for small magazines in New York. The money he earned writing these columns allowed him to completely pay for New York City College, and eventually enroll to attend Columbia University. Sinclair worked as hard as he possibly could to get into Columbia University and he was going to do the absolute best he could while he was attending the University. Since Sinclair needed ex...
The novel follows a family of immigrants from Lithuania working in a meatpacking factory, and as the novel progresses, the reader learns of the revolting conditions within the factories. Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates the concept of Bitzer’s “Rhetorical Situation” and Emerson’s quote quite effectively. For instance, the horrendous safety and health conditions of the packing factories were the exigencies that Upton Sinclair was making clear to the reader. The rhetorical audience that Sinclair aimed to influence with his novel was Congress and the president, as both had to agree in order to establish health and safety bills to better the conditions within factories. Sinclair’s efforts did not go unnoticed as in 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug act were approved by both Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt (Cherny,
The difficult living situations for many people in the early 20th century were discussed in the novel The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair. The book describes an immigrant family’s struggle to survive after moving to America. The family experiences unsafe working conditions, dangerous child labor and poverty. Sinclair uses these images to shed light on some of America’s troubles, to disparage capitalism and to promote socialism.
Capitalism underwent a severe attack at the hands of Upton Sinclair in this novel. By showing the misery that capitalism brought the immigrants through working conditions, living conditions, social conditions, and the overall impossibility to thrive in this new world, Sinclair opened the door for what he believed was the solution: socialism. With the details of the meatpacking industry, the government investigated and the public cried out in disgust and anger. The novel was responsible for the passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. With the impact that Sinclair must have known this book would have, it is interesting that he also apparently tried to make it fuction as propaganda against capitalism and pro-socialism.
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstance that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home. It is the worker’s conditions
Sinclair emphasizes the unfairness of capitalism within the struggles of the working class which helps bring most of the attention to the laborious lives th...
Unions have an extensive history of standing up for workers. They have advocated rights of steelworkers, coal miners, clothing factory employees, teachers, health care workers, and many others. The labor movement is based on the idea that organized workers as a group have more power than individuals would have on their own. The key purpose of any union is to negotiate contracts, making sure workers are respected and fairly compensated for their work. “In theory” unions are democratic organizations, resulting in varying inner authority. Workers look for security within a job a...
Factory workers of this time had very little freedom. Aside from having to work outrageous hours for 6 days of the week, there was no job security, no solid way to survive day-to-day, and if a family member were to suffer an accident, families had no financial means to carry on. In the early 1900s, there were no labor laws, including the right to organize, an eight-hour day, safety standards, or unemployment/disability pensions. M...
The book, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, has portrayed how conditions and social norms of the early 1900’s helped shape society through social reform. Sexism, racism, and class, shaped the experiences and choices of the immigrants in The Jungle throughout the book. The huge difference between the classes was the most significant of the three. Sinclair used the story of one immigrant and his family to help show what was going on in society at that time, to raise awareness, and to promote socialism.
In 1934, Upton Sinclair decided to run for the governor’s seat of California. He was a famous writer and activist, but...
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.
“I regard my workpeople just as I regard my machinery...When my machines get old and useless, I reject them and get new, and these people are part of my machinery” (Sands 12). A foreman at a textile mill in Fall River, Massachusetts spoke these words in possibly the worst time during American labor history, the Industrial Revolution. During the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of people in the United States flocked to work in factories where they faced long hours, unsanitary and unsafe conditions and poor wages. Labor unions, or groups of organized workers, formed in the United States to ensure workers the right to a safe workplace and a fair wage in the face of capitalistic factory owners seeking wealth. In exchange, union members owe the responsibility to work diligently and to the best of their abilities or face the failure of their company and the loss of their jobs.
Turbulent times of a newly freed democracy bred a longing for civil liberties and birthed what would become equality for all. The United States of America, known for independence, has not always been balanced in its freedom. The labor movement in America was a significant step in developing equal opportunity. In the nation’s infancy, working conditions were abominable. Workers were underpaid, overworked, and abused. Women and children in the workforce were ubiquitous in certain industries, often earning far less than a man would. Countless laborers were injured or killed on the job, and there was no health insurance. If a worker was wounded while working, he or she would simply be replaced. As a result of the deplorable labor environment, unions
...ise in ways to easily break strikes, and the passage of anti-union legislation. While strikes have become much harder to begin and maintain successfully, citizens vying for change now have a better opportunity of reaching each other using vast media supplied by the internet, allowing for a chance of forming larger coalitions around the country .The methods used by social movements in the past still have great potential to show our current generations feasible ways of gaining social benefits, and while some actions may be considered radical, the drive and organization the labor movement displayed could still easily prove successful. A movement away from the endless and scattered interest groups and more towards organized and larger movements aiming for improving the greater social good could bring about political and economic improvement that many Americans desire.
The Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 was one of the first major pieces of federal legislation establishing the rights of unions and union members. This act granted workers the right to organize and strike without fear of federal interference (CSU-Global, 2013). Norris-La Guardia limited the ability of the federal government and employers to engage in anti-union activities (Fossum, 2012). Workers were no longer required to sign “yellow dog contracts” which prevented them from joining unions and allowed dismissal due to union membership (Reed & Bogardus, 2012, p. 419). Although it legalized collective bargaining, the scope of Norris-La Guardia was somewhat limited because employers were not required to recognize labor unions established by employees (Fossum, 2012). Even so, passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act gave workers a foundation on which to as...