ABSTRACT
The forerunner of today’s unions started with the guilds and skilled craftpersons in Europe in the Middle Ages and emerged in the United States in the eighteenth century. These early trade craft groups, who banded together for the purposes of negotiating with an employer over such issues as wages and assistance for injury or death, were often found to be illegal. With the working conditions changing with the emerging industrialization of the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in conjunction with such events as the Great Depression, World War I, and the New Deal, an environment and conditions were created that were favorable for the growth of unions and the creation of workers’ rights in the industrial workplace.
