Portal:Organized Labour

Introduction

Image created by Walter Crane to celebrate International Workers' Day (May Day, 1 May), 1889. The image depicts workers from the five populated continents (Africa, Asia, Americas, Australia and Europe) in unity underneath an angel representing freedom, fraternity and equality.

A trade union (or a labor union in American English), often simply called a union, is an organization of workers who have come together to achieve many common goals, such as protecting the integrity of their trade, improving safety standards, and attaining better wages, benefits (such as vacation, health care, and retirement), and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by the creation of a monopoly of the workers. Trade unions typically fund the formal organization, head office, and legal team functions of the trade union through regular fees or union dues. The delegate staff of the trade union representation in the workforce are made up of workplace volunteers who are appointed by members in democratic elections.

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...)

List of selected articles

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

Jan•Feb•Mar•Apr•May•Jun•Jul•Aug•Sep•Oct•Nov•Dec

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?

Selected image

Breaker boys, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
Striking American Railway Union members confront Illinois National Guard troops in Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
Strike sign used by the German Train Drivers' Union in the German national rail strike of 2007.
The Ludlow massacre monument located in Ludlow, Colorado, United States.
Strike leaders at the Paterson silk strike of 1913. From left, Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood.
Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
Samuel Gompers.
Detail of monument to the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.
Empty Gare du Nord train station during the November 2007 strikes in France.
Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
Memorial marker for the Bay View Tragedy.
AFL–CIO unions protest outside Verizon headquarters in Philadelphia using a giant inflatable rat.
Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the Haymarket riot.
Striking I.W.W. members confront Massachusetts National Guard troops in Boston, during the Lawrence textile strike in 1912.
May Day Rally in Mumbai, India, 2004.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Albert Shanker.
Richard Trumka.
Armed vigilantes deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.
Knights of Labor Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly.
Wilma B. Liebman, chair, NLRB.
Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
Public and Commercial Services Union members on strike in Manchester 2006.
Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
Striking teamsters armed with pipes battle police in the streets during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.
Barges set ablaze by steelworkers during the Homestead strike in 1892.
Picket signs at the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
A. Philip Randolph.
Lewis Hine's 1920 image "Power house mechanic working on steam pump," which shows a working class young American man with wrench in hand, hunched over, surrounded by the machinery that defines his work.
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and his wife, circa 1908.
Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the Queensland Police on Black Friday during the 1912 Brisbane General Strike.
Shields used by striking workers at the Carnegie Steel Works during the Homestead Strike in 1892.
Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
The front page of the Union Record on the Seattle General Strike of 1919.
William Green, president of the AFL–CIO from 1924 to 1952.
J. Warren Madden, the first Chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Union members picketing recent NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike.
Camp put up by striking Pepsi-Cola workers, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, 2008.
Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
Rally in Dhaka, organized by Jatiyo Nari Shramik Trade Union Kendra (National Women Workers Trade Union Centre), an organization affiliated with the Bangladesh Trade Union Kendra.
The Place de la Sorbonne in Paris is closed by police during the 2006 labour protests in France.
An AFL–CIO protest of Rite Aid, with Rev. Mark Reisinger (Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania), Bill George, and Richard Bloomingdale.
John L. Lewis (right, President of the United Mine Workers, confers with Thomas Kennedy (left), UMW Secretary-Treasurer of the UMW, and a UMW official at the War Labor Board in 1943 about a coal miners' strike.
The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
Australian industrial relations legislation national day of protest, 2005.
Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
George Meany, former leader of the AFL–CIO.
Political cartoon about the Coal Strike of 1902 from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Joe Hill.
Members of the United Steelworkers in Ohio phone bank other union members to educate them about critical issues in the 2008 election in the U.S.
Registered nurses on strike in 2006 outside Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Selected Quote

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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