Portal:Organized Labour
Wikipedia portal for content related to Organized Labour / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portal maintenance status: (June 2018)
|
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
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 in the 1951 court case Kuzych v White, on appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, five law lords of the British Judicial Committee ruled in favour of a Communist-led trade union?
- ... 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 up to 129,000 Canadian federal workers went on strike?
- ... 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 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 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?
Related Portals
Selected image
- Image 1Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
- Image 2Breaker boys, child laborers, working in a U.S. coal mine in 1911.
- Image 3Illustration from the Brisbane Worker newspaper condemning the brutality of the Queensland Police on Black Friday during the 1912 Brisbane General Strike.
- Image 4Members 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 6Union members march in Argentina on Human Rights Day in December 2005. The signs read "Worker rights are human rights..
- Image 7A. Philip Randolph.
- Image 10Union members picketing recent NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.
- Image 11Political cartoon about the Coal Strike of 1902 from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
- Image 14John 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 15During World War II, a female aircraft worker checks electrical assemblies at the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.
- Image 16Detail of monument to the Reesor Siding Strike of 1963.
- Image 17Striking I.W.W. members confront Massachusetts National Guard troops in Boston, during the Lawrence textile strike in 1912.
- Image 18Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) notice of subway closure during the 2005 New York City transit strike.
- Image 19Memorial marker for the Bay View Tragedy.
- Image 20An 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 24AFL–CIO unions protest outside Verizon headquarters in Philadelphia using a giant inflatable rat.
- 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 26Protesters barricade the street on June 22 during the 2006 Oaxaca protests.
- Image 27Striking teamsters armed with pipes battle police in the streets during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.
- Image 28Exaggerated 19th century engraving showing flames and smoke following the Haymarket riot.
- Image 29Richard Trumka.
- Image 30Striking workers march moments before the Swedish military opened fire, killing five workers during the Ådalen shootings.
- Image 31Former headquarters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 900 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in 200.
- Image 32Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, June 21, 1919.
- Image 33Samuel Gompers.
- Image 34Union elections with an illegal firing, 1951 to 2007.
- Image 35The front page of the Union Record on the Seattle General Strike of 1919.
- Image 36Strike sign used by the German Train Drivers' Union in the German national rail strike of 2007.
- Image 37Joe Hill.
- Image 38Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.
- Image 40Shields used by striking workers at the Carnegie Steel Works during the Homestead Strike in 1892.
- Image 43National Federation of Federal Employees officials sign a collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. 8th Army in October 2002.
- Image 44Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law, during the 1894 strike.
- Image 45United Mine Workers of America poster circa 1902.
- Image 46Armed vigilantes deport striking copper miners during the Bisbee Deportation in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12, 1917.
- Image 47Striking American Railway Union members confront Illinois National Guard troops in Chicago, Illinois, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
- Image 48Mounted police chase demonstrators through Vancouver's East End during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier in 1935.
- Image 49The Western Federation of Miners' famous flyer entitled "Is Colorado in America?".
- Image 50Lewis 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 51Rally 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 56Picket signs at the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.
- Image 57The Place de la Sorbonne in Paris is closed by police during the 2006 labour protests in France.
Selected Quote
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." |
— Abraham Lincoln. |
Did you know
- ...that noted labor historian Selig Perlman is the uncle of author Judith Martin, better known as "Miss Manners"?
- ...that at the 1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women convention, Myra Wolfgang declared "...there are 3,000 women in Chicago and they didn't come here to swap recipes!"?
- ... 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?
Topics
Get involved
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Portal:Organized labour