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 in some cases common ownership. (Full article...)

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The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become teachers. The NEA has 2.8 million members and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The NEA had a budget of $399 million in 2023 along with an endowment of $428 million. Becky Pringle is the NEA's current president.

During the early 20th century, the National Education Association was among the leading progressive advocates of establishing a United States Department of Education.

Driven by pressure from teacher organizing, by the 1970s the NEA transformed from an education advocacy organization to a rank-and-file union. In the decades since, the association has continued to represent organized teachers and other school workers in collective bargaining and to lobby for progressive education policy. The NEA's political agenda frequently brings it into conflict with conservative interest groups. State affiliates of the NEA regularly lobby state legislators for funding, seek to influence education policy, and file legal actions. (Full article...)

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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 the American Society of Marine Engineers was a company union established to supplant its labor union counterpart?
... that members of the Trade Union Opposition Federation stormed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange?
... that Dolores Jiménez y Muro staged a hunger strike from prison while she was in her sixties and in poor health?
... that Scottish bricklayer Brian Higgins was unable to find work for 25 years after appearing on a construction-industry blacklist?
... that Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh may have facilitated the killing of a political rival through a United States airstrike?
... 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?

Related Portals

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

Selected Quote

In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands."

— Mary Harris Jones.

Did you know

...that fear of retaliatory terminations is a leading obstacle to union organizers in their efforts to unionize a workplace?
...that American trade union leader William McFetridge switched from Democrat to Republican in 1948 and supported Thomas E. Dewey for president even though Dewey had successfully prosecuted his predecessor for labor racketeering?
...that Herbert Gutman co-founded the "new labor history" school of thought, which focuses on the effects that ordinary people have had on the history of labor?

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