As the issue of "structure" proved in the crucial eighties, and has
remained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labor
movement, it might be well at this point to pass in brief review the
structural developments in labor organization from the beginning and try
to correlate them with other important developments.

The early[20] societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local in
scope and the relations between "locals" extended only to feeble
attempts to deal with the competition of traveling journeymen.
Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each other
of their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressing
fraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteracting
advertisements by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonest
members and so-called "scabs." This mostly relates to printers. The
shoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did even
less. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades Association in 1827, which we
noted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United States
if not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for the
carpenters striking for the ten-hour day. During the period of the
"wild-cat" prosperity the local federation of trades, under the name of
"Trades' Union,"[21] comes to occupy the center of the stage in New
York, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far "West" as
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The constitution of the New York
"Trades' Union" provided, among other things, that each society should
pay a monthly per capita tax of 6-1/4 cents to be used as a strike fund.
Later, when strikes multiplied, the Union limited the right to claim
strike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 it
discussed a plan for an employment exchange or a "call room." The
constitution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike be