ABSTRACT
We have seen in the previous chapter that the labor movement does not simply mean trade unions, but actually refers to a more multifaceted reality. The twentieth century saw powerful pressures in the United States to narrow down the “legitimate” labor movement into only one of its components, trade unions. This is the way many Americans have come to understand the term. However, the legitimacy of even this narrowed conception of the labor movement was increasingly and powerfully challenged by the final decades of the twentieth century, and the U.S. labor movement seemed to dwindle as an effective force for the economic betterment of the working class.
