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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The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther (president 1946–1970). It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing (including reaction to NAFTA), and increased globalization. After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant (VW) in 2024.

UAW members in the 21st century work in industries including autos and auto parts, health care, casino gambling, and higher education. The union is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. As of February 24, 2022, the UAW has more than 391,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in over 600 local unions and holds 1,150 contracts with some 1,600 employers. It holds assets amounting to just over $1 billion. (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 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 labor lawyer Dick Moss argued the 1975 case which resulted in the establishment of free agency in Major League Baseball?
... that during the 1913 El Paso smelters' strike the Industrial Workers of the World and the Western Federation of Miners competed to organize the strikers with their respective labor unions?
... 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 a number of bus drivers who participated in a strike were unaware that it was illegally held?
... 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

Selected image

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

Selected Quote

One man quitting out of 50,000 is nothing or even ten men or one hundred men, but if they all quit, so they can do with the employer what the employer does with you, when he discharges you, then they can bargain and there is no other kind of bargaining but collective bargaining."

— Clarence Darrow.

Did you know

...that the first comprehensive campaign of unionized labor was the subject of a 1979 Academy Award-winning film?
...that just three years after it was founded, the Spanish labor union Solidaridad Obrera became the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo?
... that although the U.S. Supreme Court denied Clyde Summers the right to practice law in Illinois in 1945 in In re Summers, Summers later was a highly influential scholar in the field of labor law?

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