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.

The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considered an instance of class conflict.

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 and Slavic 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, safe working conditions 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 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^[which?] difficulty when regulating worker's industrial rights, specifically in the decades after the Civil War. The origin of the term "business unionism" is contested. Michael Goldfield (1987) notes that the term was in common usage before Hoxie was 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...)

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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 2003–04 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 the day after returning to Atlanta following his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. joined picketers who were on strike against Scripto?
... that following the ban of its labour unions in 1934, the Romanian United Socialist Party would rely on its youth and women's wings for political action?
... that in 1969, the first women's strike for equal pay in the Netherlands was called in a cigar factory in Nieuwe Pekela?
... that a number of bus drivers who participated in a strike were unaware that it was illegally held?
... that the communist trade unionist Ditto Pölzl was a member of all three provisional state governments of Styria in 1945?
... that up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?

Related Portals

Selected image

Image 1Striking American Railway Union members confront Illinois National Guard troops in Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
Image 2American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Albert Shanker.
Image 3Lewis 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.
Image 4Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
Image 5Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
Image 6Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and his wife, circa 1908.
Image 7Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
Image 8Union members picketing recent NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.
Image 9George Meany, former leader of the AFL–CIO.
Image 10Rally 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.
Image 11May Day Rally in Mumbai, India, 2004.
Image 12Camp put up by striking Pepsi-Cola workers, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, 2008.
Image 13Breaker boys, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
Image 14Picket signs at the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
Image 15The front page of the Union Record on the Seattle General Strike of 1919.
Image 16Strike sign used by the German Train Drivers' Union in the German national rail strike of 2007.
Image 17Members 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.
Image 18Public and Commercial Services Union members on strike in Manchester 2006.
Image 19John 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.
Image 20Strike leaders at the Paterson silk strike of 1913. From left, Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood.
Image 21The Place de la Sorbonne in Paris is closed by police during the 2006 labour protests in France.
Image 22Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
Image 23Shields used by striking workers at the Carnegie Steel Works during the Homestead Strike in 1892.
Image 24Samuel Gompers.
Image 25AFL–CIO unions protest outside Verizon headquarters in Philadelphia using a giant inflatable rat.
Image 26Empty Gare du Nord train station during the November 2007 strikes in France.
Image 27Political cartoon about the Coal Strike of 1902 from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Image 28Richard Trumka.
Image 29National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
Image 30J. Warren Madden, the first Chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Image 31Australian industrial relations legislation national day of protest, 2005.
Image 32Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
Image 33Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.
Image 34Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
Image 35Joe Hill.
Image 36United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
Image 37Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the Queensland Police on Black Friday during the 1912 Brisbane General Strike.
Image 38Armed vigilantes deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.
Image 39The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
Image 40During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
Image 41Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
Image 42Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the Haymarket riot.
Image 43The Ludlow massacre monument located in Ludlow, Colorado, United States.
Image 44Knights of Labor Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly.
Image 45Barges set ablaze by steelworkers during the Homestead strike in 1892.
Image 46Wilma B. Liebman, chair, NLRB.
Image 47Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Image 48Detail of monument to the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.
Image 49William Green, president of the AFL–CIO from 1924 to 1952.
Image 50An AFL–CIO protest of Rite Aid, with Rev. Mark Reisinger (Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania), Bill George, and Richard Bloomingdale.
Image 51Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
Image 52Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
Image 53Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike.
Image 54Striking I.W.W. members confront Massachusetts National Guard troops in Boston, during the Lawrence textile strike in 1912.
Image 55Striking teamsters armed with pipes battle police in the streets during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.
Image 56A. Philip Randolph.
Image 57Memorial marker for the Bay View Tragedy.
Image 58Registered nurses on strike in 2006 outside Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Selected Quote

"Size alone I don't think is the only measurement for a labor union. It's vitality. Your resources are more limited, but it's how you spend those resources. If you spend them on communications and organization and political activity, you can be a very viable force with a much smaller number than we had in the past."

— Douglas Fraser

Did you know

...that while the majority of Benin's formal workforce are represented by trade unions, nationwide use of child labour and forced labour continues?
...that at the 1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women convention, Myra Wolfgang declared "...there are 3,000 women in Chicago and they didn't come here to swap recipes!"?
...that when Frank Fitzsimmons was named acting president of the Teamsters in 1967, a union insider said, "He's just a peanut butter sandwich; he'll melt in no time"?

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