Social Aspects of Anti‐Union Prejudice

Abstract

ALTHOUGH LABOR UNIONS in this country have made phenomenal progress, there is still considerable prejudice against them. Our cultural emphasis on individual initiative, self-reliance, and resourcefulness has contributed to a relative lack of appreciation of the need for collective action. As a result, unions here have encountered greater opposition than in some other countries, and in certain instances they have been slower to recognize their social responsibilities. It is noteworthy, however, that the forms which anti-union sentiment assumes tend to change in response to existing social conditions. Certainly the over-all picture today is vastly different from that of the era of industrial conflict which produced the Homestead steel strike (1892) and the Pullman strike (1894). But hostility to unions is nevertheless in evidence.