{"id":523,"date":"2012-09-01T01:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-01T01:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/01\/labor-day-2\/"},"modified":"2012-09-01T01:23:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-01T01:23:00","slug":"labor-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/labor-day-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\nCelebrating the contribution of workers, Labor Day, the
\nfirst Monday in September, was made a federal holiday in 1894.    Many other countries have special days to
\nhonor their working people.  Let\u2019s go
\nback in history to study the evolution of the worker\u2019s movement.  <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nEarliest
\nman lived in groups, clans and family tribes where, presumably, all contributed
\nin some way for the survival of the group. 
\nIt wasn\u2019t until these groups and tribes came together to form
\nsettlements, of sorts, that duties became more specialized.  Also, at this time, there came to be another
\nsource for labor, slavery.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nSo
\nfrom early times there were always peoples who had been captured in tribal
\nwars, the intellectually challenged and the dissidents who became enslaved to
\nwork the fields and perform the laborious (and onerous) tasks others preferred
\nnot to take on.  As man evolved and
\ncivilizations gradually created large, central cities the need for this
\nenforced labor pool became an economic necessity.  All the \u201cgreat\u201d civilizations relied upon this labor source.  <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNow
\nwe come to the end of those \u201cgreat\u201d civilizations where the cities outgrew the
\nability of the authorities to provide the goods and services necessary to
\nsustain them, and man left the urban life for the rural, agricultural way of
\nlife of the past.  However, there was a
\ngreat difference between the very earliest settlements and those of the Middle
\nAges. In Europe, by 900 CE there were more than 200 great families of the aristocracy
\n(called the higher nobility) and these families owned more than 80% of the
\narable land. The social hierarchy of those days was :<\/span><\/div>\n
\n                                                            #1 the Church with the Pope as the ultimate authority.  His power exceeded the kings and emperors of
\nthe European countries.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n                                                             #2 the Middle
\nClass, consisting of knights, gentry and yeomen<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n ( freeholders who worked their own land)<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n                                                              #3
\nand virtually everyone else<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThus
\nwas born the feudal system, the manorial economic system in which the
\nlandholder used the social classes below him for his support.  The knights pledged their allegiance to
\nfight for their manor lord, often having to supply their own horses and
\nweaponry.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nBut
\nthe basis for this social system rested with the serfs, the lowest of group
\n#3.  Now the serfs were not, strictly
\nspeaking, slaves.  They were workers
\nbound to the land but were allowed property for their own use after having
\ntended the property of the landowner. 
\nSome serfs were workers in simple manufactory, craft and
\nagricultural-related fields.  For their
\nwork they were granted the protection of the landlord.  Serfs were permitted to marry whomever they
\nchose but could not leave the land of their lord.  They, themselves, were not the property of the landowner, but
\ntheir forced labor was.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBy
\nthe late middle ages the feudal system was gradually replaced by strong
\nroyalty-based states in England and Europe. 
\nTrade was of major importance and guilds gradually were introduced into
\nthe social structure.  Some refer to
\nguilds as the forerunners of the workers unions.  However, there were many differences in the organization of
\nguilds and their later counterparts, unions. 
\nA guild had to be chartered by the king (or equivalent in whatever
\ncountry) and was managed on a local level under the authority of the town or
\ncity.  But the primary purpose of the
\nguild, unlike a union was not the protection of the members but protection of
\ntheir product.  In large centers nearly
\nevery occupation was under the representation of a guild.  The guilds wielded a fair amount of
\npower.  The rules for membership in a
\nguild were strict and members were divided into apprentices, journeymen and
\nmasters.  Each guild laid down rules
\nconcerning the quality of its product, methods of manufacture and the
\nprice.  This system of monopoly could
\npotentially lead to abuse and it was up to the royal government to oversee the
\nguilds, but where there were small, self-governing towns the system was often
\nnot controlled.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nTextile
\nguilds such as spinners, weavers, dyers and fullers as well as silk-making were
\namong the earliest guilds.  London\u2019s
\nfirst chartered guild was the weaver\u2019s guild.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nGenerally,
\nwomen were excluded from guild membership, some allowed women to join but not
\nin full participation.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAlthough
\nthere were obvious advantages in the guild system, one of the main
\ndisadvantages lay in the fact that the guild controlled all methods of
\nmanufacturey. This prevented innovation and if a group decided to use newer methods
\nthey were forced to leave the guilds. 
\nOne such example was the fullers of the wool industry. They turned to
\nwater-power and were then locating their mills in rural areas to avoid the
\nguilds.  <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nAs
\nother innovations were developed the power of the guilds was diminished.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe
\nsystem of trade unionism, many years later was an important influence on the
\ntextile industry and , perhaps, I will leave that discussion for next week.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrating the contribution of workers, Labor Day, the first Monday in September, was made a federal holiday in 1894.    Many other countries have special days to honor their working people.  Let\u2019s go back in history to study the evolution of the worker\u2019s movement.  Earliest man lived in groups, clans and family tribes where, presumably, all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guilds","category-serf-labor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}