PTE Reading MC Multiple Answers: In this newly emerging economic order, workers are sometimes organized to protect their…

In this newly emerging economic order, workers are sometimes organized to protect their rights and traditional ways of life. Craft workers such as carpenters, printers, and tailors formed unions, and in 1834 individual unions came together in the National Trades Union. The labor movement gathered some momentum in the decade before the Panic of 1837, but in the depression that followed, labor’s strength collapsed. During hard times, few workers were willing to strike or engage in collective action. And skilled craft workers, who spearheaded the union movement, did not feel a particularly strong bond with semi-skilled factory workers and unskilled laborers. More than a decade of agitation did finally bring a workday shortened to 10 hours to most industries by the 1850s, and the courts also recognized workers’ right to strike, but these gains had a little immediate impact.