In the United States, the term treaty is used in a more restricted legal sense than in international law. U.S. law distinguishes what it calls treaties from congressional-executive agreements and sole-executive agreements.
Knights of Labor (KOL) Knights of Labor (KOL), the first important national labour organization in the United States, founded in 1869. Named the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor by its first leader, Uriah Smith Stephens, it originated as a secret organization meant to protect its members from employer retaliations. Secrecy also gave the organization an emotional appeal. The organizationâs original platform was partly ideological.
In Europe, these craft organizations were to be the basis of larger, mass unions uniting workers without regard for trade or, in some cases, industry (Ansell, 2001). This process began in the United States in the 1880s when craft workers in the Knights of Labor reached out to organize more broadly. Formed by skilled male, native-born garment cutters in 1869, the Knights of Labor would seem an odd candidate to mobilize the mass of unskilled workers.