Portal:Organized Labour
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Organized-labour-portal-banner.jpg)
Introduction
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Walter-crane-1889-solidiarty-of-labour.jpg/250px-Walter-crane-1889-solidiarty-of-labour.jpg)
- 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 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 Spartacist uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand), also known as the January uprising (Januaraufstand) or, more rarely, Bloody Week, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting.
The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police. Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed. As a result, the uprising remained largely without direction. The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising.
The death toll was roughly 150–200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were those of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were executed extrajudicially on 15 January, almost certainly with the at least tacit approval of the MSPD-led government. The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on 19 January 1919. The Assembly went on to write the Weimar Constitution that created the first national German democracy. (Full article...)September in Labor History
Significant dates in labour history.
- September 01 - Walter Reuther was born; William Z. Foster died; International Brotherhood of Boilermakers was formed; Working America was founded
- September 02 - Federal troops intervened in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 in the U.S.; Franz Leopold Neumann died; the Rock Springs massacre occurred in 1885 in the U.S.
- September 04 - The Textile workers strike of 1934 began in the U.S.; former unionist Francisco Largo Caballero became prime minister of Spain; Thomas R. Donahue was born
- September 05 - Victor Gotbaum was born; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn died
- September 06 - Johan Nygaardsvold was born
- September 07 - Southampton Dock strike of 1890 began in the U.K.; Ela Bhatt was born; Cornelius Shea was born
- September 08 - The Delano grape strike began in 1965 in the U.S.; Kenneth Yablonski died; Ben Gold was born
- September 09 - John Mitchell died; the Hanapepe massacre occurred in 1924 in the Hawaii
- September 10 - Lattimer massacre occurred in the U.S.
- September 11 - Russell Crowell died
- September 12 - Tom Mooney was born; George L. Berry was born
- September 13 - Amado V. Hernández was born; Carlos Bulosan died; George Hardy died
- September 14 - Albert Shanker was born; the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act became law in the U.S.; the U.S. Steel recognition strike of 1901 ended in the U.S.; Leon J. Davis died; the German Trade Union of the Police was founded in 1950; James Duncan died
- September 15 - The Invergordon Mutiny occurred in 1931 in the U.K.; the Free Workers' Union of Germany was founded in 1919
- September 16 - The 2004–05 NHL lockout began in the U.S. and Canada; the Farm Labor Organizing Committee signed a first contract with the Mt. Olive Pickle Company in the U.S.
- September 17 - Miguel Contreras was born; David Dubinsky died; the National Federation of Federal Employees was formed
- September 18 - Sandra Feldman died; James Scullin was born; Teamsters for a Democratic Union was founded; Thomas E. Scanlon was born; Mary Lee died
- September 19 - Joe Glazer died; the National Football League Players Association struck in 1982 in the U.S.
- September 20 - Lewis B. Schwellenbach was born; Sam Church was born; Nathan Feinsinger was born; the Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union was founded
- September 21 - John White died; Arlene Holt Baker became the first African-American officer of the AFL–CIO in 2007
- September 22 - Steel strike of 1919 began in the U.S.; the Winter of Discontent began in the U.K. as workers struck Ford
- September 23 - The Sydney Twelve were arrested in 1916 in Australia
- September 24 - The Workers Trade Union Law is passed in Bahrain
- September 25 - The Atomic Trades and Labor Council was founded; the Health Professionals and Allied Employees conducted its first strike in 1979 in the U.S.
- September 26 - The Temple University Graduate Students Association was founded
- September 27 - The Santa Barbara News-Press unionization effort began in the U.S.; the Change to Win Federation was formed
- September 28 - Alice Mahon was born
- September 29 - The Liverpool dockers' strike began in 1995 in the UK.
- September 30 - Ignatius Wolfington died; the first legal version of Solidarity was formed in 1985 in Poland
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 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 John Sterling, Anthony Harrison and Chuck Compton were all signed by the Green Bay Packers as replacement players because of a players' strike during the 1987 NFL season?
- ... that M. Farooqui, who had been expelled from his studies for having organized a strike in 1940, received his Delhi University degree in a special convocation in 1989?
- ... that the Russian airstrike on Kyiv TV Tower (video featured) killed Yevhenii Sakun, one of at least 14 civilian journalists killed in the line of duty during the Russo-Ukrainian War?
- ... that the British Tychon missile was developed from a Barnes Wallis concept to keep strike aircraft safe while dropping nuclear bombs?
Related Portals
Selected image
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 Teamsters president Dave Beck invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 117 times before a U.S. Senate investigating committee?
- ...that the AFL–CIO Organizing Institute has trained over 10,000 trade union organizers since its 1989 founding?
- ... that United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947) is the only U.S. Supreme Court decision prior to 1965 to address the meaning of the Ninth and Tenth amendments substantively?
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