Portal:Organised_Labour
Portal:Organized Labour
- 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...)
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 just under 3 million members and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The NEA had a budget of more than $341 million for the 2012–2013 fiscal year. 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...)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.
- ... that Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls was one of the leaders in the first successful effort to unionize Amazon warehouse workers in the United States?
- ... that the 1913 Studebaker strike is regarded as the first major labor strike in the automotive industry?
- ... that the 56-foot-tall (17 m) monument to the theologian Samuel Rutherford near his parish church in Anwoth was badly damaged by a lightning strike five years after its construction?
- ... 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 Women's National Basketball Players Association was the first trade union for professional women athletes?
- ... that up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?
Wilma B. Liebman, chair, NLRB.
William Green, president of the AFL–CIO from 1924 to 1952.
Armed vigilantes deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.
Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
George Meany, former leader of the AFL–CIO.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Albert Shanker.
Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the Queensland Police on Black Friday during the 1912 Brisbane General Strike.
National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
Members 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.
John 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.
United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
Political cartoon about the Coal Strike of 1902 from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The front page of the Union Record on the Seattle General Strike of 1919.
Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
Union members picketing recent NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.
Strike sign used by the German Train Drivers' Union in the German national rail strike of 2007.
The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
Knights of Labor Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly.
Striking teamsters armed with pipes battle police in the streets during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.
During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the Haymarket riot.
Striking I.W.W. members confront Massachusetts National Guard troops in Boston, during the Lawrence textile strike in 1912.
Empty Gare du Nord train station during the November 2007 strikes in France.
Rally 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.
Barges set ablaze by steelworkers during the Homestead strike in 1892.
Shields used by striking workers at the Carnegie Steel Works during the Homestead Strike in 1892.
An AFL–CIO protest of Rite Aid, with Rev. Mark Reisinger (Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania), Bill George, and Richard Bloomingdale.
Strike leaders at the Paterson silk strike of 1913. From left, Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessig, and Bill Haywood.
Detail of monument to the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.
Breaker boys, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
Memorial marker for the Bay View Tragedy.
Striking American Railway Union members confront Illinois National Guard troops in Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
Public and Commercial Services Union members on strike in Manchester 2006.
Lewis 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.
Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and his wife, circa 1908.
Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
Picket signs at the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
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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." |
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— Mary Harris Jones. |
- ...that during the Hardin County onion pickers strike in 1934, anti-union vigilantes seized control of the town of McGuffey, Ohio, for a day?
- ...that partly because of issues highlighed by the London matchgirls strike of 1888, the Salvation Army opened up its own match factory in Bow, London in 1891, which used harmless red phosphorus and paid better wages?
- ...that in 1918, the National Federation of Federal Employees became the first labor union in the United States to win the legal right to represent federal employees?
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