The steam engine started the first Industrial Revolution. The jump in goods production has opened new jobs that attracted a mass of rural people. With overwork and shortage of vacancies, free negotiation between employers and employees has produced devastating results: hours of up to 70 hours a week, children and women with lower wages and work accidents leaving masses of cripples and dead.
Workers' movements began to claim better conditions. Demonstrations and strikes, initially treated as police cases, showed that state intervention was needed to protect the weaker party. Labor law arose to balance asymmetrical power relations in seeking real equality between employers and employees.
