Importance of Immigrants to American Labor Laws and American Union Groups

Importance of Immigrants to American Labor Laws and American Union Groups

            An increase in industrialization in the American economy led to a high rise in the demand for labor. There was a high need for workers, both immigrants, and local people. Many people migrated from rural to cities looking for employment. This created a negative impact on the labor force. The wages and salaries declined as the working condition deteriorated. The representatives of the large companies and the industries combine efforts to control the labor force as well as benefiting from its pool. The poor working conditions led to the awakening of the American labor unions to come up with organized labor force strategies (Mink,2019). Immigrants created a certain milestone in American Labor laws. This essay will examine whether the immigrants made considerable positive or negative changes in the American Labor laws as well as Union groups.

Living Conditions for Immigrants

Immigrants are the people who move from their home country in search of better living conditions. This can be a result of war, human trafficking, or trade. North Americans had a high demand for labor due to the sugar plantation during colonial times. This made factories and other big companies look for cheap work, both locally and internationally (Gulasekaram, 2018). Poor working conditions led to the formation of American labor unions in anticipation of seeking improvements in their member’s wages, benefits, and better working conditions. During this period, American labor unions were most powerful, with the majority of the immigrants to the united states being members of the working class. The country’s economy changed drastically due to the high labor force needs. The question arises on whether the immigrants achieved the ultimate goal in search of better living conditions.

Ideally, life in America means having a wealth of options. As the number of immigrants increased, the countries from which they came from changed dramatically. The principal source of immigrants was Europe and Africa. Countries are quite different in terms of culture and language from the United States. This made it difficult for new immigrants to adjust to life in America. At the same time, the United States faced the challenge of absorbing immigrants. Most of the immigrants lived in the town centers where the job was located. Residential choice plays an important role in the life trajectories of immigrants.

Merely, the condition at the workplace was terrible during the immigration period. As more factories were built during the industrial revolution, businesses were in higher demand for workers. With many immigrants ready to work, employers could set salaries at the lowest level possible, just because people were eager to work as long as they get compensated. Industries were not the best place to work; immigrants worked under darkness for an extended period of time. Children were exposed to hard labor with pay of fewer than 10 cents an hour (Philbin et al.,2018). As a result of this explicit torture, labor unions were formed basically to address the demand for better treatment and pay rise. Workers rioted against children’s exposure to factories’ working conditions. Although, the efforts to fights for a better working environment and pay rise didn’t bare enough fruits. Since more immigrants came to the United States and were willing to work under any working conditions, most people lived in slums; living conditions were terrible, which led to the spread of disease and ultimate death due to lack of medicines.

Most workers envisioned the political economy since it directly interlinked to the worker’s welfare. The critical concerns of the worker’s strikers were to ensure equality in service delivery as well as opportunities in political forums. As long as the short-term improvements were made, the critical concerns were based on the prospectus future challenges. The critical concerns rose as many immigrants seek for equal rights in the political economy. Immigrants, as well as manufacturing enterprises, were concentrated in the rapidly growing towns, this promoted industrializations as well as improving their living conditions. The general immigrant’s vision on the political economy created an inclusivity concern to the federal government, thus giving them an opportunity in political environments.

The decision to call on the strike doesn’t come easily. This usually erupts after consistent failure to address workers’ welfare. It’s a simple strategy to awaken the factories and corporate organizations on the critical demands of workers. Although strikes might have a negative implication on the worker’s welfare. In many circumstances, ‘ workers are dealt with from personal perspectives, therefore, creating more significant harm on the social consequences. During the colonial period, workers were subjected to physical torture by working for long hours with minimum pay. This led to consistent strikes. Although these strikes were attributed to negative implications on employee’s welfare. Many of them risked losing jobs in a foreign country. Although the contentment by Labor unions gave workers freedom of strikers highlighted their grievances.

How Media Portrayed Immigrants

Media played a critical role in anticipation of the immigrants. It portrayed immigrants with derogatory descriptions, thus creating a negative image in the public arena. The hostile political climate delimited communication strategies and created a dehumanizing environment for the immigrants. Most of the critical issues affecting the immigrants were not focused (Swain, 2018). For instance, health and personal well-being. The only means to achieve media coverage was by posing positive implications to the government. Most of the media information was entirely focused on giving false information, thus underestimating the classical gaps between immigrants and locals.

The common challenges affected both immigrants and the non-striking people. Workers focused on anticipating an improvement in the social welfare, political economy, and the social inter-relations amongst themselves. For example, workers demonstrated against miserable living conditions, including health facilities and other critical amenities. The inclusivity idea of people created anxiety to join workers in the strike.

Role of Women Workers

Women always played a more significant role in the labor movement strikes. The purpose of women workers increased significantly as many workers learned how the organization could upsurge their chances of successfully negotiating with employers for fair wages and better working conditions. The combined power of the feminist movement and the increased influence of women in the labor movement broker many barriers to employment.

Challenge of Language in Organizing Strikes

The common challenge which could have created disharmony in labor strikes is the language barrier. United states comprised of immigrants from different parts of the world. The cultural differences created a gap amongst the working class. Although the language differences didn’t create any challenges for the striking workers. Most of the immigrants learned primary English language, which was used majorly for communications amongst people from different cultural ethnicities. The use of visual methods of communication created an adventure for a non-skilled worker in articulating their concerns. Furthermore, the use of simple English language and repetitive techniques allowed workers to emphasize their interests. Based on the complex working environment, workers learned the English language, thus improving their communication skills.

Impacts of Strikes

Frequent strikes by workers created an economy redundancy. Employers are more likely to lose money due to the loss of production time. The worker will experience failure economically; no work, no pay principle will apply. Employee-Employer will change dramatically, thus creating either hostile or definite improvement in productivity. In the long run, there will be a positive impact on productivity as well as employee welfare. Strikes don’t aim in causing conflicts but addressing the concerned party on the particular negatively thriving behaviors. Labor movements will have a favorable implication resulting from strikes.

Conclusion

The united states smugness itself on being the country of emigrants. The nation has an elongated history of successful engrossing of people from the world. The combination of the emigrants and their offspring led to economic strength and ever-changing social traits. As many immigrants arrived in America, there was a considerable change in Labor law. Different migrants moved to America with the aim of seeking better jobs. This is led to the consistent mobilization of workers to participate in industrial actions to improve working conditions and employee’s welfare. This ultimately led to the restructuring of labor laws incorporating both residential and immigrant workers’ welfare.

References

Gulasekaram, P. (2018). Immigration federalism. In Controversies in American Federalism and Public Policy (pp. 151-170). Routledge.

Mink, G. (2019). Old labor and new immigrants in American political development: union, party, and state, 1875-1920. Cornell University Press.

Philbin, M. M., Flake, M., Hatzenbuehler, M. L., & Hirsch, J. S. (2018). State-level immigration and immigrant-focused policies as drivers of Latino health disparities in the United States. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 29-38.

Swain, C. M. (Ed.). (2018). Debating immigration. Cambridge University Press.