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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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike and industrial action in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the rule of a particular political party or ruler; in such cases, strikes are often part of a broader social movement taking the form of a campaign of civil resistance. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard and the 1981 Warning Strike led by Lech Wałęsa. These strikes were significant in the long campaign of civil resistance for political change in Poland, and were an important mobilizing effort that contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist party rule in Eastern Europe. Another example are the strikes that followed the Kapp Putsch which were organised by the USPD and the German Communist Party that resulted in the collapse of the Putsch. (Full article...)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.
More Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that in 1969, the first women's strike for equal pay in the Netherlands was called in a cigar factory in Nieuwe Pekela?
- ... 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 John Sterling, Anthony Harrison and Chuck Compton were all signed by the Green Bay Packers as replacement players because of a players' strike during the 1987 NFL season?
- ... that Italian anarchists founded the first trade union for bakers in Argentina?
- ... 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 when journalist and trade unionist Nisn Pups was released from jail, the Communist Party of Lithuania instructed him to change his name?
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The history of the labor movements needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. … We ought to be proud of it!"
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— Hubert Humphrey |
Did you know
- ...that during the Hardin County onion pickers strike in 1934, anti-union vigilantes seized control of the town of McGuffey, Ohio, for a day?
- ...that Cornelius Shea, the founding president of the Teamsters, spent more than five years in Sing Sing prison for slashing and stabbing his mistress 27 times?
- ... that Jens Tangen, who was ordered by Nazis to become a trade union leader, was later deposed but escaped death, unlike his deputy chairman and judicial office leader?
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