Many of the reasons for strikes now – low compensation, technological change, job insecurity and safety concerns – mirror the motives that workers had for walking off the job in decades past.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in 2023 that lets children under 16 work without official permission from their parents.
AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo
Some of the biggest changes to child labor laws are in Iowa and Arkansas.
Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘A little spinner in a Georgia Cotton Mill, 1909.’
Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P545)
Beth Saunders, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
While Lewis Hine’s early-20th century photographs of working children compelled Congress to limit or ban child labor, the US Department of Labor is now under fire for failing to enforce these laws.
The federal government sent troops to crush an 1877 rail strike.
Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The country’s reliance on ‘at-will’ employment means that companies face few restrictions when they want to downsize their workforces.
These boys working in a Georgia cotton mill were photographed in 1909.
Lewis Hine/The National Child Labor Committee Collection via Library of Congress
More than a fifth of US children were working in 1900, and many Americans saw nothing wrong with that. It took decades of activism and court battles plus economic upheaval to change course.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon at a White House press conference joining government and corporate officials – but no representatives of workers.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
If government and business collaborate with workers, a scholar of labor relations writes, current economic problems could get less severe, the recovery smoother and lasting prosperity more likely.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter spoke at a Northern Virginia high school about civil service changes underway.
AP Photo/Jeff Taylor
Nearly one in five employed Americans is bound by a contract restricting moves to rival companies. Here’s one way to make those arrangements less common.
A pedestrian walks past a Chicago Sun-Times newspaper box.
AP Photo/M. Spencer Green
Giving labor unions a financial stake in a company such as a newspaper can offer unique advantages that could benefit employees, society and the bottom line.
Back in the 1930s, people like this pear peddler in New York City’s Lower East Side often got their news from labor-led media.
AP Photo
Brian Dolber, California State University San Marcos
The newspaper’s new owners harken back to a tradition of labor-led media in the early part of the 20th century, which represented a bulwark against corporate power.