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A History of Trade Unionism in the United States

Note 14 — CHAPTER 3 THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

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The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for the reservation of all lands for actual settlers; the "abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits"; the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a law prohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition of the contract system on national, state, and municipal work, and of the system of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both sexes; reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; "the substitution of arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees are willing to meet on equitable grounds"; the establishment of "a purely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources of the nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public or private".

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