Portal:Organized Labour
Introduction
- In trade unions, workers campaign for higher wages, better working conditions and fair treatment from their employers, and through the implementation of labour laws, from their governments. They do this through collective bargaining, sectoral bargaining, and when needed, strike action. In some countries, co-determination gives representatives of workers seats on the board of directors of their employers.
- Political parties representing the interests of workers campaign for labour rights, social security and the welfare state. They are usually called a labour party (in English-speaking countries), a social democratic party (in Germanic countries), a socialist party (in Romance countries), or sometimes a workers' party.
- Though historically less prominent, the cooperative movement campaigns to replace capitalist ownership of the economy with worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, and other types of cooperative ownership. This is related to the concept of economic democracy.
The labour movement developed as a response to capitalism and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at about the same time as socialism. The early goals of the movement were the right to unionise, the right to vote, democracy and the 40-hour week. As these were achieved in many of the advanced economies of western Europe and north America in the early decades of the 20th century, the labour movement expanded to issues of welfare and social insurance, wealth distribution and income distribution, public services like health care and education, social housing and common ownership. (Full article...)
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A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article 2). They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2), due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.
Some labour organizations are accused by rival unions of behaving as "company unions" if they are seen as having too close or congenial a relationship with the employer or with business associations, and even if they may be formally recognized in their respective jurisdictions as bona fide trade unions, they are usually rejected as such by regional and national trade union centres. In a study of one such organisation, this form of company union was observed to rarely or never strike, exert relatively little energy in resolving individual workplace disputes, and undercut other unions by bargaining for well beneath industry-standard terms, and was characterised thus:
(Full article...)"[...] an accommodationist, or 'company,' union—an opportunistic, pariah organization that allows employers who would otherwise face a 'real' union (i.e., traditional, militant) a convenient union-avoidance alternative."
May in Labor History
Significant dates in labour history.
- May 01 - In 1884 Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States. Two years later, in 1886, the general strike which eventually won the eight-hour workday in the United States, began. These events are today commemorated as May Day or Labor Day in most industrialized countries; Thomas Lewis died; the 1946 Pilbara strike occurred in Australia; International Woodworkers of America merged with the International Association of Machinists; Mike Watson was born; the Taksim Square massacre occurred in Turkey in 1977
- May 02 - Nazi Germany outlawed free trade unions and established the German Labour Front; Bernice Fisher died
- May 03 - The International Typographical Union was founded; the Bay View Tragedy occurred in 1886 in the U.S.
- May 04 - Haymarket Riot occurred in 1886 in the U.S.
- May 05 - John Sweeney was born; Jackie Presser stepped down as Teamsters president due to cancer; James Duncan was born
- May 06 - Miguel Contreras died; Frank Fitzsimmons died; Ludvik Buland was born
- May 07 - Miguel Contreras was born; Maurice Hutcheson was born; David Sullivan was born
- May 08 - Jerome Wurf was born; the Hard Hat riot occurred in the U.S. in 1970
- May 09 - Elias Motsoaledi died; 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike began in the U.S.
- May 10 - Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson died; Walter Philip Reuther died; the 2008 Skorpion Zinc Strike began in Namibia
- May 11 - William Konyha was born; Pullman Strike began in 1894 in the U.S.
- May 12 - Coal Strike of 1902 began in the U.S.; the American Maritime Officers was founded
- May 13 - Henk Sneevliet was born
- May 14 - Arthur Moore (labor leader) was born; the Ådalen shootings occurred in Sweden in 1931
- May 15 - Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum; Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 began; George Mock stepped down as president of the Teamsters after eight days; the Ulster Workers' Council Strike began in 1974 in Northern Ireland; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gompers v. Buck's Stove and Range Co.; Arthur Creech Jones was born
- May 16 - The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 began in the U.S.; the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions was founded; the U.S. Supreme Court decided NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co.; A. Philip Randolph died
- May 17 - The first Starbucks Workers Union was organized; former trade union leader Francisco Largo Caballero was deposed as prime minister of Spain
- May 18 - Bill Haywood died; the Atlanta transit strike of 1950 began in the U.S.
- May 19 - James P. Hoffa was born; the Battle of Matewan began in 1920 in the U.S.
- May 21 - Cyrus S. Ching was born
- May 22 - Agustín Tosco was born; the Steel Workers Organizing Committee was disbanded in 1942; the United Steel Workers of America was founded in 1942
- May 23 - The "Battle of Toledo" occurred during the Auto-Lite Strike in 1934 in the U.S.
- May 24 - The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals was founded; Peter J. Brennan was born
- May 25 - Philip Murray was born; the Remington Rand strike of 1936–1937 began in the U.S.; Basdeo Panday was born; Will H. Daly was born
- May 26 - Actors' Equity Association was founded; the Ohio Federation of Teachers was founded
- May 27 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided In re Debs
- May 29 - The Disney animators' strike began in 1941 in the U.S.; the Cordobazo uprising began in 1969 in Argentina; the 2006 TTC wildcat strike began in Canada
- May 30 - William Sidell was born; the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 occurred in the U.S.; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association
- May 31 - W. A. Boyle died
More Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls was one of the leaders in the first successful effort to unionize Amazon warehouse workers in the United States?
- ... that a 1994 lightning strike in Egypt led to 469 deaths after oil tanks were ignited and flooded the village of Dronka with burning fuel?
- ... that after Kellogg's announced plans to replace striking workers in 2021, members of r/antiwork organized to submit fake applications to the company's hiring system?
- ... that during the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003, all but one of Venezuelan chocolatier María Fernanda Di Giacobbe's ten businesses went bankrupt?
- ... that the Women's National Basketball Players Association was the first trade union for professional women athletes?
- ... that in the 1951 court case Kuzych v White, on appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, five law lords of the British Judicial Committee ruled in favour of a Communist-led trade union?
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Every advance in this half-century: Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education... one after another- came with the support and leadership of American Labor."
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— Jimmy Carter. |
Did you know
- ...that noted labor historian Selig Perlman is the uncle of author Judith Martin, better known as "Miss Manners"?
- ...that when Andy Stern challenged Richard Cordtz for the presidency of the SEIU labor union, Cordtz fired him for insubordination?
- ...that Arnold Miller defeated W. A. Boyle in 1972 for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America after Boyle murdered union reformer Joseph Yablonski?
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