Unions 101

Union Fast Facts

• Over 15.5 million union members represent a cross section of people—women and men of all ages, races, and ethnic groups.
• Unions members work in hospitals, nursing homes, auto assembly plants, on construction sites, trains, buses, and airplanes.
• Time magazine’s “Person of the Century,” Albert Einstein was a founding member of the Princeton Federation of Teachers Local 552 union, signing its charter in 1938.
• In colonial, times, carpenters, cabinetmakers, and cobblers’ guilds worked to improve pay. In 1825, Boston carpenters struck for the 10-hour workday. In 1886, 5,000 members of the Knights of Labor conducted the first major strike, against the Iron Mountain Railroad in Arkansas.