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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.

The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL-CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL-CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL-CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated, and many locals of Change to Win are either part of or work with their local central labor councils. The largest unions currently in the AFL-CIO are the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with 2 million members, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with approximately 1.7 million members, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members, and United Food and Commercial Workers with 1.2 million members. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

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 up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?
... 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 after being arrested for organizing a general strike in 1920, S. Girinis was sent to the Soviet Union following a Soviet-Lithuanian exchange of political prisoners?
... that members of the Trade Union Opposition Federation stormed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange?
... that labor lawyer Dick Moss argued the 1975 case which resulted in the establishment of free agency in Major League Baseball?
... that Scottish bricklayer Brian Higgins was unable to find work for 25 years after appearing on a construction-industry blacklist?

Related Portals

Selected image

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

Selected Quote

- "Had the employers of past generations all of them dealt fairly with their men there would have been no unions."

— Stanley Baldwin

Did you know

...that the steel strike of 1959 led to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history?
...that noted labor historian Selig Perlman is the uncle of author Judith Martin, better known as "Miss Manners"?
...that Anna Walentynowicz and Alina Pienkowska transformed a strike over bread and butter issues into a solidarity strike in sympathy with other striking establishments giving birth to Solidarity in 1980?

More Did You Know?

Topics

Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Organized Labour-related articles, see Organized Labour WikiProject.