No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of the
alternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, it
had centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only to
change abruptly to "panaceas" and politics with the descent of
depression. Now the movement, notwithstanding possible changes in
membership, and persistent political leanings in some portions of it, as
a whole for the first time became stable in purpose and action. Trade
unionism has won over politics.
This victory was synchronous with the first successful working out of a
national trade agreement and the institutionalization of trade unionism
in a leading industry, namely stove molding. While one of the earliest
stable trade agreements in a conspicuous trade covering a local field
was a bricklayers' agreement in Chicago in 1887, the era of trade
agreements really dates from the national system established in the
stove foundry industry in 1891. It is true also that the iron and steel
workers had worked under a national trade agreement since 1866. However,
that trade was too exceptionally strong to be typical.
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