One book I found particularly helpful in understanding big business' role in the rise of unions was A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America 1870-1920 by Michael McGerr.
It is clear that life was appalling and brutal for many workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as McGerr points out in horrifying detail.
Of course, it was only after the Civil War that America had created so much prosperity that people began to notice how crappy work conditions were. It was during this era when the concept of "leisure time" was first considered a possibility.
When you have to build industry with mule power and brute strength, it is going to be a nasty business, no argument. You try blasting through a mountain to lay railroad track with only human labor and horse power without having much danger, death and casualties.
Funny though, even today Stalin is still lauded for having dragged the Soviet Union into the 20th century, thereby mitigating his crimes for way to many intellectuals.
If only they would afford the same slack to the far more humane (by Stalin's standards) practices of the so-called Robber Barons.
But I do take your point, and don't really have a problem with collective bargaining for workers in such conditions.
Problem is, that was then, and this is now. So today we have unions dying in the private sector, and by far the largest membership is in the government sector.
That tells me that unions have served whatever purpose they may have once had, but have long since outlived their usefulness.
try explaining malkin’s insight to joe sixpack down at the union local watering hole....
good luck with all that....