Portal:Organized Labour
Introduction

The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment". This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, occupational health and safety standards, complaint procedures, rules governing status of employees including promotions, just cause conditions for termination, and employment benefits.
Unions may organize a particular section of skilled workers (craft unionism), a cross-section of workers from various trades (general unionism), or attempt to organize all workers within a particular industry (industrial unionism). The agreements negotiated by a union are binding on the rank and file members and the employer and in some cases on other non-member workers. Trade unions traditionally have a constitution which details the governance of their bargaining unit and also have governance at various levels of government depending on the industry that binds them legally to their negotiations and functioning.
Originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution. Trade unions may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, students, apprentices or the unemployed. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union, is highest in the Nordic countries. (Full article...)
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A business union is a type of trade union that is opposed to class or revolutionary unionism and has the principle that unions should be run like businesses.
Business unions are believed to be of American origin, and the term has been applied in particular to phenomena characteristic of American unions. This idea originated over the court's difficulty when regulating worker's industrial rights, specifically following the decades after the Civil War. Hyman (1973) attributed the term "business unionism" to Hoxie, but Michael Goldfield (1987) notes that the term was in common usage before Hoxie published in 1915.
According to Goldfield, Hoxie used the term to describe trade-consciousness, rather than class-consciousness; in other words, according to Hoxie, business unionists were advocates of "pure and simple" trade unionism, as opposed to class or revolutionary unionism. This sort of business unionism is what Eugene Debs often referred to as the "old unionism". (Full article...)February in Labor History
Significant dates in labour history.
- February 01 – The Paterson silk strike of 1913 began in the U.S.; the San Diego free speech fight began in the U.S. in 1912
- February 02 – Shannon J. Wall died
- February 03 – George Becker died; José Vitoriano died
- February 04 – Bill Haywood was born; John Mitchell was born; Benyoucef Benkhedda died
- February 05 – Neil Aggett died; Ludvik Buland died
- February 06 – The Seattle General Strike of 1919 began in the U.S.; Elba Esther Gordillo was born; William Hutcheson was born
- February 07 – The Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 began in the U.S.; the 2006 labour protests in France began; Paul Mattick died
- February 08 – Ong Teng Cheong died; Jakob Kaiser was born
- February 09 – George Lippard died; the Supreme Court of Canada issued its reasoning in Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Etobicoke
- February 10 – 11 strikers were killed during the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963 in Canada; Peter Smith died; the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO was founded; the film Blue Collar was released
- February 11 – The Oxnard strike of 1903 began in the U.S.; the UAW won a first contract at GM, ending the Flint sit-down strike; Nellie Quander was born; Mark Hewitson died; Clyde Cameron was born; the Memphis sanitation strike began
- February 12 – John L. Lewis was born
- February 13 – The Sons of Vulcan win the first contract in the U.S. iron and steel industry and the first union contract of any kind in American history; Margaretta Scott was born; Dennis McDermott died; John Healey was born
- February 14 – The Asbestos Strike began in 1949 in Australia; the Winter of Discontent ended in the U.K. in 1979; Jimmy Hoffa was born; Michael Sacco was born; the Confederation of State and Municipal Employees of Iceland was founded; Mary Lee was born
- February 15 – The 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute began; Baldemar Velasquez was born; Alice Henry died
- February 16 – The Griviţa Strike of 1933 began in Romania in 1933; William Quesse died; the National Hockey League cancelled its season in the middle of the 2004-05 NHL lockout; James Orange died;
- February 17 – Harry Van Arsdale, Jr. died
- February 18 – Peter J. McGuire died; George Campbell was born
- February 19 – The U.S. Supreme Court decided Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority and NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc.; I. C. Frimu died
- February 20 – Chittabrata Majumdar died
- February 21 – Patrick J. Campbell died; Phil Hare was born; Felix Aylmer was born
- February 22 – Albert Shanker died; David Dubinsky was born; the Democratic Organization of African Workers' Trade Union was founded; Poncke Princen died
- February 23 – Douglas Fraser died; Graduate Employees Together – University of Pennsylvania was formed; John Holman died; Kate Barnard died; Benyoucef Benkhedda was born; the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association was founded
- February 24 – The General Union of Algerian Workers was founded; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Muller v. Oregon; John P. Frey was born; Marshall W. Mason was born
- February 25 – Edgar Nixon died; Las Aguas Bajan Turbias, an Argentine film about workers forming a trade union, debuted in the U.S.
- February 26 – John Holman was born; the Southern California Supermarket strike of 2003-2004 ended in the U.S.; Frederick Hayday died
- February 27 – The Labour Party was founded in the U.K. in 1909; Mark Hewitson died; the first Spanish Trade Union Organisation congress was held; the European Court of Human Rights decided ASLEF v. United Kingdom; Tom Williamson, Baron Williamson died
- February 28 – The University of Miami 2006 custodial workers' strike began in the U.S.; John White was born; Hal C. Banks was born; Lim Chin Siong was born; John La Rose died; Tommy Lewis died; Ted Theodore died; Arthur Hayday died
- February 29 – A. L. Lloyd was born
More Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that Hurricane Dorian was the strongest hurricane on record to strike the Bahamas?
- ... that English footballer Mark Bright was a foster child, started on wages of £10 a week, and has gone on to earn £1.2 million during his career?
- ... that the 1985–86 Hormel meatpacking plant strike was the subject of both an Academy Award–winning film and a stage play by the Children's Theatre Company?
- ... that one out of ten labourers in the haruwa–charuwa system is forced to work when seriously ill or injured, and may still face deduction or non-payment of wages?
- ... that the 1943 Rolls-Royce strike at the Merlin engine plant in Hillington, Scotland, was the only major strike for equal pay in the United Kingdom during the Second World War?
- ... that trade union official Roger Poole spent his honeymoon travelling the Americas in a double-decker bus promoting British products, until the bus sank in a river in Peru?
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Nothing moves in the city, without our say-so. Let the bosses curse, let the papers cry. This morning I saw it happen with these ancient eyes of mine. Without our say-so nothing moves but the tide!" | ![]() |
— Rob Rosenthal, written during the Seattle General Strike of 1919. |
Did you know
- ...that the National Labor Board established the doctrine of representational exclusivity in American labor relations, a rule still used today?
- ...that the first labor investigations by a United States government body were prompted by petitions from the Lowell Mill Girls, textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the mid-nineteenth century?
- ... that the merger between the Norwegian Labour Party-led Workers' Sport Federation and the Communist-led 'Red Sports' has been described as an early example of the popular front line?
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