Portal:Organized Labour
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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...)
Selected article
The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. Since the 2010 general election, it has been the second-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast, behind the Conservative Party and ahead of the Liberal Democrats. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference.
The party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940–1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s, Tony Blair took Labour to the centre as part of his New Labour project which governed under Blair and then Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010.
The Labour Party currently forms the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, having won the second-largest number of seats in the 2019 general election. The leader of the party and Leader of the Opposition is Keir Starmer. Labour is the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), being the only party in the current Welsh government. The party is the third-largest in the Scottish Parliament, behind the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Conservatives. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and holds observer status in the Socialist International. The party includes semi-autonomous London, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish branches; however, it supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland, while still organising there. , Labour has around 366,604 registered members. (Full article...)May in Labor History
Significant dates in labour history.
- May 01 - In 1884 Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States. Two years later, in 1886, the general strike which eventually won the eight-hour workday in the United States, began. These events are today commemorated as May Day or Labor Day in most industrialized countries; Thomas Lewis died; the 1946 Pilbara strike occurred in Australia; International Woodworkers of America merged with the International Association of Machinists; Mike Watson was born; the Taksim Square massacre occurred in Turkey in 1977
- May 02 - Nazi Germany outlawed free trade unions and established the German Labour Front; Bernice Fisher died
- May 03 - The International Typographical Union was founded; the Bay View Tragedy occurred in 1886 in the U.S.
- May 04 - Haymarket Riot occurred in 1886 in the U.S.
- May 05 - John Sweeney was born; Jackie Presser stepped down as Teamsters president due to cancer; James Duncan was born
- May 06 - Miguel Contreras died; Frank Fitzsimmons died; Ludvik Buland was born
- May 07 - Miguel Contreras was born; Maurice Hutcheson was born; David Sullivan was born
- May 08 - Jerome Wurf was born; the Hard Hat riot occurred in the U.S. in 1970
- May 09 - Elias Motsoaledi died; 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike began in the U.S.
- May 10 - Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace-Johnson died; Walter Philip Reuther died; the 2008 Skorpion Zinc Strike began in Namibia
- May 11 - William Konyha was born; Pullman Strike began in 1894 in the U.S.
- May 12 - Coal Strike of 1902 began in the U.S.; the American Maritime Officers was founded
- May 13 - Henk Sneevliet was born
- May 14 - Arthur Moore (labor leader) was born; the Ådalen shootings occurred in Sweden in 1931
- May 15 - Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum; Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 began; George Mock stepped down as president of the Teamsters after eight days; the Ulster Workers' Council Strike began in 1974 in Northern Ireland; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gompers v. Buck's Stove and Range Co.; Arthur Creech Jones was born
- May 16 - The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 began in the U.S.; the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions was founded; the U.S. Supreme Court decided NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co.; A. Philip Randolph died
- May 17 - The first Starbucks Workers Union was organized; former trade union leader Francisco Largo Caballero was deposed as prime minister of Spain
- May 18 - Bill Haywood died; the Atlanta transit strike of 1950 began in the U.S.
- May 19 - James P. Hoffa was born; the Battle of Matewan began in 1920 in the U.S.
- May 21 - Cyrus S. Ching was born
- May 22 - Agustín Tosco was born; the Steel Workers Organizing Committee was disbanded in 1942; the United Steel Workers of America was founded in 1942
- May 23 - The "Battle of Toledo" occurred during the Auto-Lite Strike in 1934 in the U.S.
- May 24 - The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals was founded; Peter J. Brennan was born
- May 25 - Philip Murray was born; the Remington Rand strike of 1936–1937 began in the U.S.; Basdeo Panday was born; Will H. Daly was born
- May 26 - Actors' Equity Association was founded; the Ohio Federation of Teachers was founded
- May 27 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided In re Debs
- May 29 - The Disney animators' strike began in 1941 in the U.S.; the Cordobazo uprising began in 1969 in Argentina; the 2006 TTC wildcat strike began in Canada
- May 30 - William Sidell was born; the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 occurred in the U.S.; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association
- May 31 - W. A. Boyle died
More Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... 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 strike by uranium miners in 1974 in Ontario led to the creation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act?
- ... that the 1937 Fleischer Studios strike in New York City was the first major labor strike in the animation industry?
- ... that in 1977, Appalachian folk singer Phyllis Boyens performed at a Christmas benefit concert to support Kentucky coal miners who had been on strike for 17 months?
- ... that shortly after a missile strike on the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters, Oleksiy Danilov said that the fleet could be "sliced up like a salami" at a later date?
- ... that "The Strike" (1954), about an American officer's turmoil in ordering an air strike on his own men, was rated as Rod Serling's best script he had written to date?
Related Portals
Selected image
- Image 2Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.
- Image 3Armed vigilantes deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.
- Image 4National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
- 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 6Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
- Image 8An 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 10Breaker boys, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
- Image 11Striking American Railway Union members confront Illinois National Guard troops in Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
- Image 14Strike sign used by the German Train Drivers' Union in the German national rail strike of 2007.
- Image 16The Place de la Sorbonne in Paris is closed by police during the 2006 labour protests in France.
- Image 17Memorial marker for the Bay View Tragedy.
- Image 18Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
- Image 19Joe Hill.
- Image 21Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the Queensland Police on Black Friday during the 1912 Brisbane General Strike.
- Image 22Striking I.W.W. members confront Massachusetts National Guard troops in Boston, during the Lawrence textile strike in 1912.
- Image 23Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the Haymarket riot.
- Image 24Detail of monument to the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.
- Image 25AFL–CIO unions protest outside Verizon headquarters in Philadelphia using a giant inflatable rat.
- Image 26Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
- 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 28Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
- Image 31Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
- Image 33The front page of the Union Record on the Seattle General Strike of 1919.
- Image 34Union members picketing recent NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.
- Image 35During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
- Image 36United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
- Image 38Samuel Gompers.
- Image 39Striking teamsters armed with pipes battle police in the streets during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.
- Image 41Picket signs at the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
- Image 45Members 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 46Shields used by striking workers at the Carnegie Steel Works during the Homestead Strike in 1892.
- Image 47A. Philip Randolph.
- Image 48Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
- Image 50Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
- Image 51Political cartoon about the Coal Strike of 1902 from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
- Image 52Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
- Image 53John 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 54Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
- Image 55Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike.
- Image 56Rally 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 57The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
- Image 58Richard Trumka.
Selected Quote
What is a labour victory? I maintain that it is a twofold thing. Workers must gain economic advantage, but they must also gain revolutionary spirit, in order to achieve a complete victory. For workers to gain a few cents more a day, a few minutes less a day, and go back to work with the same psychology, the same attitude toward society is to achieve a temporary gain and not a lasting victory." |
— Elizabeth Gurley Flynn |
Did you know
- ...that the Free Association of German Trade Unions was the only trade union in Germany to reject the Burgfrieden, a civil truce between the socialist movement and the German state during World War I?
- ...that alleged labour injustices in Dubai have been criticised by various human rights groups?
- ...that in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. the U.S. Supreme Court held that preliminary work activities should be included as working time under the Fair Labor Standards Act?
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Portal:Organized labour