
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 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...)
Selected article
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...)
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 up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?
- ... that a number of bus drivers who participated in a strike were unaware that it was illegally held?
- ... that the murder of Luisa Lallana sparked a general strike in Rosario, Argentina?
- ... that Scottish bricklayer Brian Higgins was unable to find work for 25 years after appearing on a construction-industry blacklist?
- ... that M. Farooqui, who had been expelled from his studies for having organized a strike in 1940, received his Delhi University degree in a special convocation in 1989?
- ... 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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"I would rather sit with the rural poor, the desperate children of urban blight, the victims of racism, and working people seeking a better life than with those whose religion is the status quo, whose goal is profit and whose hearts are cold."
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— Douglas Fraser |
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 actor Edward Chapman, known for his role as "Mr. Grimsdale" in many Norman Wisdom films, tried to have Sir John Gielgud thrown out of Equity?
- ...that during the 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike, 21 people were killed and the strike ended only after union leaders were accused of taking bribes?
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