The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of people who migrated to America for work, saying "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." In 2013, in a 155.5 million working population, union membership was 35.9% in the public sector, 6.6% in the private sector. In 2017, unemployment was 4.3%, excluding people in prison. The US ranks 29th in the world inequality-adjusted human development index.

Eleanor Roosevelt believed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 "may well become the international Magna Carta of all". Based on the President's call for a Second Bill of Rights in 1944, articles 22–24 elevated rights to "social security", "just and favourable conditions of work", and the "right to rest and leisure" to be as important as the "right to own property".

"Newsboys" in L.A. were held in the leading case, NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., to be employees with labor rights, not independent contractors, on account of their unequal bargaining power.

In September 2015, the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency held that Uber drivers are controlled and sanctioned by the company and are therefore not self-employed.

Hotel union workers strike with the slogan "One job should be enough"

Political cartoon showing organized labor marching towards progress, while a shortsighted employer tries to stop labor (1913)

Labor union voting by federal workers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1948)

Union members rally to reject union busting in New Orleans (2019)