Dominant Unions

Running Heading: DOMINANT UNIONS

Dominant Unions

Name

DeVry Institute of Technology

With unions trying to force companies into compliance with their demands unions such as AFL, IWW and CIO were formed. These groups were developed based on the understanding that there is a need to cooperate with business and not bullying them into compliance with union demands. In all, this was certainly an effort to ensure that union’s in general maintained relevancy.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) worked to launch and maintain standards at work through work rules. To prevent union organization the AFL was created in response to the Citizen’s Alliance, they did this through the use of open shop and welfare capitalism. Ironically enough these open shops were not really open, rather just anti-union. With the help of welfare capitalism this enabled supervisory practices to progress. Also the implementing of offering wage incentives, hiring and firing procedures, providing insurance benefits, and encouraging a positive culture permitted employees to finally work in an environment that values their safety and their voice.

Although the AFL was successful in various ways employees grew weary of its conservative and discriminatory tactics therefore in 1905 the Industrialized Workers of the World (IWW) was created. The IWW exemplified revolutionary unionism since it tries to “create a working class solidarity rather than solidarity by occupation or industry, which ultimately seeks for the over through of capitalism” (Budd, 2008). IWW’s strived to create one large union of skilled and unskilled workers across all industries, definitely a drastic move at that time.

While the AFL and the IWW had been developed, there were still a large number of workers whom had no representation. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was created to fill in theses gaps, representing unskilled workers that had no correspondence with the AFL or the IWW. One of the major...