sick-benefits

Updated: March 20, 2026

Parliament was petitioned, agitations were organized, sick-benefits were inaugurated, and when these methods failed, machinery was destroyed, factories were burned, and the strike became a common weapon of self-defense. Though a few labor organizations can be traced as far back as 1700, their growth during the eighteenth century was slow and irregular.

Samuel Peter Orth - The Armies of Labor : A chronicle of the organized wage-earners