unskilled labor

Examples of unskilled labor in the following topics:

• Marginal Productivity and Income Distribution

  • Not all labor, however, is equal in the firm's eyes.
  • The two broad categorizations of laborers is skilled (e.g. doctor) and unskilled (e.g. an assembly line worker).
  • Suppose there are many firms with positive net marginal productivity of skilled labor.
  • If a country has an absolutely advantage in both skilled and unskilled workers, but a comparative advantage in unskilled workers, the country will specialize in the good that is intensive in the use of unskilled labor.
  • The increased returns will go to unskilled workers (they will see their wages increase), even though the country also has an absolute advantage in skilled labor.

• Immigrant Labor

  • Many of the economic gains in the United States during the nineteenth century were made possible by immigrant labor.
  • Immigrants of the nineteenth century flocked to urban destinations, making up the bulk of the U.S. industrial labor pool.
  • These new sources of labor profoundly influenced the emergence of the steel, coal, automobile, textile, and garment industries, increasing production and enabling the United States to leap into the front ranks of the world's economies.
  • The Irish provided mostly unskilled labor in factories, textile mills, and large infrastructure projects such as canals and railroads.
  • The Irish provided a ready source of unskilled labor needed to lay railroad tracks and dig canals.

• Modern Management

  • His redesign increased the speed of factory machines and the productivity of factories while undercutting the need for skilled labor.
  • Factories became an assemblage of unskilled laborers performing simple and repetitive tasks under the direction of skilled foremen and engineers.
  • The number of unskilled and skilled workers increased as their wage rates grew.

• Introduction to Labor in America: The Worker's Role

  • Many Americans left farms and small towns to work in factories, which were organized for mass production and characterized by steep hierarchy, a reliance on relatively unskilled labor, and low wages.
  • In this environment, labor unions gradually developed clout.
  • More and more workers hold white-collar office jobs rather than unskilled, blue-collar factory jobs.
  • But unskilled workers in more traditional industries often have encountered difficulties.
  • The 1980s and 1990s saw a growing gap in the wages paid to skilled and unskilled workers.

• Market-Oriented Theories

  • According to market-oriented theories of inequality, the low wage earned by seasonal agricultural laborers will encourage members of the labor pool to acquire other skills, which in term will raise the wage earned by agricultural laborers.
  • The model is commonly applied to wages, in the market for labor.
  • The consumers of labors are businesses, which try to buy (demand) the type of labor they need at the lowest price.
  • As populations increase, wages fall for any given unskilled or skilled labor supply.
  • For example, in countries with huge pools of unskilled agricultural laborers but limited agricultural land, agricultural land is very poorly compensated.

• Toward Free Labor

  • The labor-intensive cash crop of tobacco was farmed in the American South by indentured laborers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  • In modern terms, the shipowner was acting as an contractor, hiring out his laborers.
  • Relative labor costs changed, with an increase in real income in Europe and England.
  • By the turn of the 17th century, unskilled labor positions were often filled by African slaves and skilled service positions were still filled by white indentured servants.
  • Thereafter, Africans began to replace indentured servants in both skilled and unskilled positions.

• A New Direction for Unions

  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which was to guarantee the rights included in NLRA (as opposed to merely negotiating labor disputes) and organize labor unions representation elections.
  • NLRA remains the landmark legislation of federal labor law that established the increasingly powerful position of organized labor during Roosevelt's presidency.
  • Consequently, in the context of labor legislation and labor unions discussed in this module, the term "worker" refers mostly to industrial workers.
  • This model excluded the so-called unskilled workers, employed most commonly in mass production.
  • Above all, the new form of organization finally opened the door to mainstream organized labor to black workers, who usually occupied unskilled industrial jobs (excluded from the AFL's form of organization).

• The Knights of Labor and the "Conditions Essential to Liberty"

  • The Knights of Labor transitioned from a fraternal organization to a labor union that promoted the uplift of the workingman.
  • The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s.
  • They also called for legislation to end child and convict labor .
  • The Knights strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Law of 1885, as did many other labor groups, although the group did accept most others, including skilled and unskilled women of any profession.
  • Two years later, members of the Socialist Labor Party left the Knights to found the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a Marxist rival.

• Industrial Work

  • Industrial labor is labor in industry, usually manufacturing, but it may also include service work, such as cleaning or cooking.
  • But this type of production required a new type of labor, industrial labor.
  • Industrial labor is defined as labor in industry.
  • Karl Marx referred to industrial laborers as members of the proletariat .
  • Blue-collar work may be skilled or unskilled, and includes manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanics, maintenance, technical installation, and other types of physical work.

• Depression and Post-War Victories

  • When Roosevelt took office, he sought a number of important laws that advanced labor's cause.
  • The act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to punish unfair labor practices and to organize elections when employees wanted to form unions.
  • Its supporters wanted to organize all workers at a company -- skilled and unskilled alike -- at the same time.
  • The craft unions that controlled the AFL opposed efforts to unionize unskilled and semiskilled workers, preferring that workers remain organized by craft across industries.
  • Chavez, a Mexican-American labor leader, for example, worked to organize farm laborers, many of them Mexican-Americans, in California, creating what is now the United Farm Workers of America.