"After prescribing the rate of remuneration many of the Trades'
Unions go to enact laws for the government of the respective
departments, to all of which the employer must assent .... The
result even thus far is that there is found no limit to this
species of encroachment. If workmen may dictate the hours and
mode of service, and the number and description of hands to be
employed, they may also regulate other items of the business with
which their labor is connected. Thus we find that within a few
days, in the city of New York, the longshoremen have taken by
force from their several stations the horses and labor-saving
gear used for delivering cargoes, it being part of their
regulations not to allow of such competition."

The gravitation towards common action was felt over a wide area
during this period. Some trades met in national convention to lay
down rules for their craft. One of the earliest national meetings
was that of the carpet-weavers (1846) in New York City, when
thirty-four delegates, representing over a thousand operatives,
adopted rules and took steps to prevent a reduction in wages. The
National Convention of Journeymen Printers met in 1850, and out
of this emerged two years later an organization called the
National Typographical Union, which ten years later still, on the
admission of some Canadian unions, became the International
Typographical Union of North America; and as such it flourishes
today. In 1855 the Journeymen Stone Cutters' Association of North
America was organized and in the following year the National
Trade Association of Hat Finishers, the forerunner of the United
Hatters of North America. In 1859 the Iron Molders' Union of
North America began its aggressive career.