Walking Delegate

views updated

WALKING DELEGATE

WALKING DELEGATE, an important factor in the development of American trade unionism, was either a union organizer or business agent. As an organizer, his function was to persuade nonunion employees to join the union and demand union standards of wages, hours, and conditions of employment. As a business agent, his responsibility was to safeguard the terms of the trade agreement and adjust grievances that arose in its interpretation and application.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Litwack, Leon. The American Labor Movement. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962.

Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Gordon S.Watkins/t. d.

See alsoCollective Bargaining ; Labor ; Trade Unions .

More From encyclopedia.com