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.

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

social housing and common ownership. (Full article...

)

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The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU or Cosatu) is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions. (Full article...)

List of selected articles
AFL–CIO International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Solidarity (Polish trade union) United Steelworkers National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers United Food and Commercial Workers National Education Association Service Employees International Union Italian Labour Union Seattle General Strike American Federation of Labor 1985–1987 Watsonville Cannery strike

June in Labor History

Significant dates in labour history.

June 01 - Matthew Woll died; the United Farm Workers conducted its first strike in 1966 in Texas; the Cananea strike began in 1906
in Mexico

June 02 - During the 1952 steel strike, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer; the Child Labor Amendment was adopted by the U.S. Congress; Charles Moyer
died

child labor laws; Victor G. Reuther died; Emmanuel Christopher Loblack
died

June 04 - The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers affiliated with the CIO; Lou Cunningham
was born

California Agricultural Labor Relations Act

became law

June 06 - Don Farrell was born; CUPE 3902 was founded; N. M. Perera was born; Thomas Jackson
died

June 07 - The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was founded; the Matignon Agreements ended a general strike in 1936 in France; John Willcock
died

June 08 - Robert Lee Hill was born; Emil Rieve was born; Percy Wells
was born

June 09 - R. J. Thomas
was born

June 10 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.; Frank Hayes died
Federación Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia was founded; José Bové
was born

June 12 - The 1981 Major League Baseball strike began in the U.S. and Canada; Philip Vera Cruz died
June 13 - Israel Kugler was born; Tony Mazzocchi was born
June 14 - 1911 Liverpool general transport strike began in the U.K.; government troops triggered the 2006 Oaxaca protests in Mexico
June 15 - The Metal Trades Department, AFL–CIO was founded
June 16 - Dave Beck was born
June 18 - Battle of Ballantyne Pier occurred in Canada in 1935; the Battle of Orgreave occurred in 1984 in the U.K.
June 19 - Nelson Cruikshank died; John W. Brown died; Tanong Po-arn disappeared
June 20 - The American Railway Union was founded; Jim Bacon died; Evelyn Dubrow died; Alphonse Verville died
June 21 - Nelson Cruikshank was born; the Herrin massacre occurred in 1922 in the U.S.; the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Congress of Industrial Organizations; the "Molly Maguires" were hanged in the U.S.; Frank Drozak died
June 22 - Riots occurred during the Grunwick dispute in 1976 in the U.K.; Paul Hall died; the U.S. Supreme Court decided Burlington Northern Railway v. White; the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council was founded; John Marius Trana was born
June 23 - The Taft–Hartley Act became law in the U.S.
June 24 - Terence V. Powderly died, Agnes Nestor was born
June 25 - Winnipeg general strike of 1919 ended; the Smith–Connally Act became law in the U.S.
June 26 - Timothy D. Murphy died; the Alliance of Concerned Teachers was formed; John W. Brown died; Emma Miller was born
June 27 - The 1949 Australian coal strike began; the Industrial Workers of the World was founded; the Bureau of Labor Statistics was formed in the U.S.
Labor Day in the U.S.; Alfred Miodowicz was born; Vere Bird
died

U.S. Supreme Court decided Communications Workers of America v. Beck

June 30 - Former labor union official Tomiichi Murayama became Prime Minister of Japan

Jan•Feb•Mar•Apr•May•Jun•Jul•Aug•Sep•Oct•Nov•Dec

More Did you know (auto-generated)

... that after Kellogg's announced plans to replace striking workers in 2021, members of r/antiwork organized to submit fake applications to the company's hiring system?
... that the 2016 Jim Beam strike was the first labor strike in the company's history?
... 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 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
Jennifer Bates led thousands of Amazon warehouse workers to petition a vote for a union in Bessemer, Alabama
?

... that up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?

Related Portals

Selected image

Image 1Public and Commercial Services Union members on strike in Manchester 2006.
Image 2The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
Image 3Detail of monument to the
Reesor Siding Strike of 1963
.
Image 4Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
Image 5A. Philip Randolph.
Image 6Memorial marker for the
Bay View Tragedy
.
Image 7Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Image 8
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
.
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 10
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike
.

Image 11The front page of the Union Record on the
Seattle General Strike of 1919
.
Image 12During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
Image 13Samuel Gompers.
Image 14Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
Image 15May Day Rally in Mumbai, India, 2004.
Image 16The
Ludlow massacre monument located in Ludlow, Colorado, United States
.

Image 17Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and his wife, circa 1908.
Image 18Camp put up by striking
Pepsi-Cola workers, in Guatemala City, Guatemala
, 2008.

Image 19Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
Image 20
Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
.
Image 21
AFL–CIO
.
Image 22Picket signs at the
2007 Writers Guild of America strike
.
Image 23Richard Trumka.
Image 24American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Albert Shanker.
Image 25Strike leaders at the
Paterson silk strike of 1913. From left, Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood
.

Image 26Armed vigilantes
deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation
in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.

Image 27Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
Image 28Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
Image 29
NLRB
.
Image 30Barges set ablaze by steelworkers during the Homestead strike in 1892.
Image 31United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
Image 32Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the
1912 Brisbane General Strike
.
Image 33
Breaker boys
, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
Image 34Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the
Haymarket riot
.
Image 35
on strike in 2006 outside Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
.

Image 36The
2006 labour protests in France
.
Image 37National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
Image 38Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
Image 39Empty Gare du Nord train station during the November 2007 strikes in France.
Image 40Knights of Labor Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly.
Image 41
AFL–CIO
from 1924 to 1952.
Image 42An
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 43Joe Hill.
Image 44
Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike
in 1894.

Image 45Political cartoon about the
Coal Strike of 1902
from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Image 46Strike sign used by the
German national rail strike of 2007
.
Image 47Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
Image 48J. Warren Madden, the first Chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Image 49Shields used by
Homestead Strike
in 1892.
Image 50Rally 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 51Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
Image 52
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 53
Lawrence textile strike
in 1912.
Image 54Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
Image 55
AFL–CIO unions protest outside Verizon headquarters in Philadelphia
using a giant inflatable rat.

Image 56Australian industrial relations legislation national day of protest, 2005.
Image 57Lewis 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 58Union members
NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C.
, headquarters in November 2007.

Selected Quote

If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor."

— Frank Lloyd Wright

Did you know

...that the
Auto-Lite Strike culminated in the "Battle of Toledo," a five-day melee between 6,000 striking workers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard
that left two dead and more than 200 injured?

...that the steel strike of 1959 led to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history?
... that the leftist Collective Labor Movement was the largest trade union centre in the Philippines in the years just before World War II?

More Did You Know?

Topics

Labour (economics)
Labour and employment law

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