Final answer:
Workers would sometimes engage in strikes to make factory owners address demands such as better wages and work conditions.
Historical examples include the 1881 British match factories strike and actions during the Great Unrest. The Organized Labor movement and legal changes such as the labor laws during the Great Depression helped to formalize workers' rights to bargain collectively and strike.
Step-by-step explanation:
Workers would sometimes go on strikes to force factory owners to meet their demands for better pay and working conditions. During the Industrial Revolution and onwards, employees were often forced to endure long hours, up to 14-16 hours daily, at low wages, and their rights to unionize were restricted.
On occasions where workers' demands for improved wages, shorter work hours, and better working conditions were ignored, they would resort to organized labor actions such as strikes to assert their rights.
One historical example is from 1881, when women in British match factories went on strike to seek relief from long working hours and hazardous conditions. Similar actions occurred during the period known as the Great Unrest and again when the National War Labor Board brokered agreements to prevent strikes during wartime production.
Organized Labor became an important movement advocating for these rights. Labor unions leveraged the power of collective bargaining and the threat of strikes to improve conditions.
Labor laws eventually legalized these actions during the Great Depression, granting the legal right for unions to engage in collective bargaining and striking, except in the public sector where such actions were often illegal due to their potential to disrupt society.