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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April in Labor History

Significant dates in labour history.

April 01 - Burston Strike School began in 1914 the U.K.; the 1972 Major League Baseball strike began in the U.S. and Canada; the 1980 New York City transit strike began; the U.S. Supreme Court decided NLRB v. Truck Drivers Local 449; the Federation of Unions of South Africa was founded; the Allied Pilots Association was founded; the Loray Mill strike began in the U.S. in 1929; Sol Chick Chaikin died
April 02 - Weldon Mathis was born; Eugene Hanley was born; the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike ended in 1995
April 03 - Percy Wells died
April 04 - The On-to-Ottawa Trek began in Canada in 1935; William Quesse was born; the 2006 Minor League Baseball umpire strike began in the U.S.
April 06 - Rose Schneiderman was born; the 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike began as the Teamsters engaged in a sympathy strike; B. T. Ranadive died
April 07 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided Lochner v. New York; Basawon Singh (Sinha) died
April 08 - The 1998 Australian waterfront dispute began
April 09 - John H. Dent died; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Adkins v. Children's Hospital and Bunting v. Oregon; Chris Watson was born; President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in anticipation of the 1952 steel strike; Natascha Engel was born; Thomas Jackson was born
April 10 - Harold J. Gibbons was born; Dolores Huerta was born; Joseph Diescho was born; George Lippard was born; Edward J. Carlough was born; Lee Batchelor was born; Anna Walentynowicz died
April 11 - The 1980 New York City transit strike ended
April 12 - Tom Addison was born; the U.S. Supreme Court decided NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.; the Auto-Lite strike began in 1934 in the U.S.; the Union Label Department, AFL–CIO was founded; the Memphis sanitation strike ended; the Queensland Council of Unions was founded; the Sons of Vulcan was founded
April 13 - Henk Sneevliet died; the Laborers' International Union of North America was founded
April 14 - Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca was born; Marvin Miller was born; Ernest Bevin died
April 15 - A. Philip Randolph was born; Pablo Manlapit died; the American Federation of Teachers was founded; "Black Friday" occurred in 1921 in the U.K.; Aleksei Gastev died; the Trade Unions Forum was founded; Margaretta Scott was born
April 16 - Joseph Havelock Wilson died
April 17 - Manwel Dimech died
April 18 - Joseph Labadie was born; R. J. Thomas died
April 20 - Gro Harlem Brundtland was born; The Ludlow Massacre occurred in 1914 in the U.S.; the International Harvester strike of 1979–80 ended
April 21 - The Bituminous coal miners' strike of 1894 began in the U.S.; the First Employment Contract is repealed in France in 2006
April 22 - Frederick Nicholas Zihlman died
April 23 - Russell Crowell was born; the Canadian Labour Congress was formed; Cesar Chavez died; the Hock Lee bus riots occurred in 1955 in Singapore; Edward Lamb was born
April 25 - Arnold Miller was born
April 26 - United Trade Union Centre (Lanin Sarani) was founded
April 28 - Workers' Memorial Day; Roy Lee Williams died; Bob White was born; Greg Combet was born; Jerry Horan died; Joseph Glimco died
April 29 - The Coeur d'Alene miners' dispute of 1899 occurred in the U.S.

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

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that members of the Trade Union Opposition Federation stormed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange?
... that Sting wrote "We Work the Black Seam" because he felt that "the case for coal was never put to the nation" during the 1984–85 British miners' strike, which began 40 years ago today?
... that Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir died on a hunger strike after his arrest for anti-war videos posted on a YouTube channel with five subscribers?
... that the murder of Luisa Lallana sparked a general strike in Rosario, Argentina?
... that a 23-day CBC strike thrust Don Goodwin into the Canadian national spotlight and into "folk-hero status"?
... that 55,000 Berlin workers went on strike on 28 June 1916 to protest the arrest and trial of anti-war campaigner Karl Liebknecht?

Related Portals

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

Selected Quote

I am directly opposed to it myself, but if it is a question of strike or you go into slavery, then I say strike until the last one of us drop into our graves."

— Mary Harris Jones.

Did you know

...that the Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977 was the largest protest movement against the Communist regime in Romania before the Romanian Revolution of 1989?
...that NHS Together, a group of unions which support Britain's National Health Service, are supported by celebrities such as football (soccer) player Geoff Hurst, adventurer Ranulph Fiennes, actress Tamsin Greig and comedian Arthur Smith?
...that the three-day S.S. California strike in 1936 triggered a wave of strikes by merchant seamen and led to the founding of the National Maritime Union?

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