Unions

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autonomous national (Cashman,205.) The advantage to this was that decisions were made in each union where the leaders understood the situation. However, the AFL retreated from its Marxian origins to become a profoundly conservative organization restricted to the ranks of skilled, white males. This restrictive policy was a major flaw of the AFL and kept them from gaining the numbers and strength that it may have attained. These policies came directly from the ideas of the AFL’s longtime leader Samuel Gompers. Gompers believed that labor should accept the existing capitalist economy but try and get a larger share for labor by way of higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions of work. He believed that the idealistic goal of a fundamental economic reform was an illusion (Cashman,221.) His conservative approach included negotiation and conciliation in labor disputes and in resort to strikes only after other methods had failed. He opposed alliances with political parties and the ...

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birthright to be the sole support of the household (Laurie,196.) This contributed to more prejudices against women and keeping their numbers down in the AFL. The unskilled and immigrant workers were the worst off in the AFL. Unskilled immigrant labor was regarded by most union leaders as undesirable and unorganizable. The AFL was a leading advocate for immigration restriction on both economic and nativist grounds. This outlook deepens our understanding of the American Federation of Labors, along with its leader Samuel Gompers, retreat from heroism (Laurie,198.) This means that though the AFL did have many successes the things that it could have accomplished but did not far outweighs ...

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