America’s Gilded Age with its mega-sized industries spawned a new chapter in the American labor movement. Large industries brought with them the potential for large labor pools to be used for leverage towards gaining better job security, working conditions, and wages. In practice, organized labor does not play well with a modern industrial economy. Business cycles, corporate competition, evolving technologies, a propensity for violence, and opposing political factions all wreaked havoc with the goals of organized labor.