"A right to a job": A sociological history of carpentry and printing craft labor markets in the United States

This study shows how and why craft labor markets emerged in the United States between the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It records and analyzes the history of the building and printing industries, and the class formation among both employers and workers that resulted from capitalist reorganization. Needing a high proportion of skilled labor, they developed craft labor markets through struggles over control of the labor market and allocation of jobs. Employers approached the labor market with a concern to maintain their authority over workers and their flexibility of action. Workers wanted to increase their security and autonomy. These objectives clashed. Workers and employers repeatedly fought over the length of the working day, the division of labor, the union shop, and the allocation of jobs. They also frequently disputed the wage level, but this was less fundamental, normally concerning only an adjustment to changed structural conditions. The full range of conflicts included all aspects of the direct class relationship between workers and employers that were fundamental to capitalism. Structural conditions caused the emergence of conflicts and their ultimate stable resolution. The growth of markets, increased competition, larger firms, reduced upward mobility, technological threats, and business cycles had convergent effects. Prior to capitalism, class distinctions were muted, and journeymen had little capacity to challenge the authority of employers. Capitalism simultaneously divided the interests of the two classes, diminished employers' individual authority, and increased the organizational capacity of workers. Structural changes also increased the complexity of labor markets, and therefore exacerbated the problems of sustaining an acceptable level of order. Ideological and organizational processes of class formation had secondary consequential roles. Ideology had an autonomous causal influence to the degree that interests were objectively ambiguous, but actions required "knowledge." Values were unimportant. Class formation also caused the political processes within and between class organizations to become part of class interests.