Labor history of the United States The labor history of the
United States describes the history of organized labor, as well
as more general history of working people, in the United States.
Pressures dictating the nature and power of organized labor have
included the evolution and power of the corporation, efforts by
employers and private agencies to limit or control unions, and
U.S. labor law. As a response, organized unions and labor
federations have competed, evolved, merged, and split against a
backdrop of changing social philosophies and periodic federal
intervention. As commentator E. J. Dionne has noted, the union
movement has traditionally espoused a set of values—solidarity
being the most important, the sense that each should look out
for the interests of all. From this followed commitments to
mutual assistance, to a rough-and-ready sense of equality, to a
disdain for elitism, and to a belief that democracy and
individual rights did not stop at the plant gate or the office
reception room. Dionne notes