Trade Unions

12 Key excerpts on "Trade Unions"

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  Understanding European Trade Unionism

  Between Market, Class and Society

  • Richard Hyman(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  2

  Trade Unions as Economic Actors

  Regulating the Labour Market

  In most English-speaking countries, Trade Unions have traditionally been viewed as organizations the primary purpose of which is to secure economic benefits for their members; in particular, by advancing their ‘terms and conditions of employment’ through collective bargaining. From such a perspective, broader social and political objectives are of dubious legitimacy, or at best ancillary to unions’ economic functions.

  In this chapter I discuss the classic analysis of trade union functions presented by Sidney and Beatrice Webb over a century ago, and the doctrine of ‘business unionism’ which acquired particular force in the USA. In the latter model, industrial relations is perceived as a largely self-contained field of action. Unions succeed best, it is assumed, by their skill and determination in playing the labour market; other forms of union action do not facilitate, and may detract from, unions’ economic goals.

  Yet it is questionable how far the labour market can be treated as analogous to the general model of commodity markets; and likewise it is misleading to abstract market processes in general from the socio-political environment in which they are located. Accordingly, there is a contradiction at the heart of business unionism: Trade Unions can intervene effectively in regulating the labour market only to the extent that their aims and actions transcend the purely economic.

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  Concise Encyclopaedia of Participation and Co-Management

  • György Széll(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Trade Unions The concept of Trade Unions Trade Unions are part of the relationship between capital and labour. When, in the course of the historical development of capitalism, this relationship has acquired some stability groups of wage workers formed Trade Unions. They formed coalitions in order to defend their interests against capital within the framework of this relationship. Such coalitions can be impeded by political force and partly also by measures of repression by the entrepreneurs. But when the repression diminishes, the wage workers formed again Trade Unions. This demand for trade union organisation is closely linked to the fact that wage workers have in general no other possibility of subsistence than that of selling their work force. Thus their work force necessarily becomes a commodity. The interest of workers in subsistence, and more than that, in an existence worthy of an human being takes on for them forms which are derived from the commodity character of their work force. This constellation entails three fundamental interests for wage workers: the first consists in the possibility of selling their work force; it finds expression as an interest in finding a job and retaining it, in other words an interest in job security. This first interest logically rakes precedence over the others because it must be satisfied before other interests can be pursued. The second interest consists in the attempt to sell their work force as expensively as possible. The at least partial satisfaction of the interest in higher wages, in a higher income is necessary in order to guarantee the 'reproduction' of the wage worker and of his family and to permit a participation - however low it may be -in the wealth of the society. The third interest aims at the conservation of work force. The existence of the worker is the precondition for the sale of his work force. When he is young, the wage earner has the impression that his work force is unlimited.

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  Comparative Employment Relations

  France, Germany and Britain

  • Susan Milner(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  67 Chapter 4 Trade Unions in and Beyond the Workplace 4.1 The role of Trade Unions Traditional approaches to industrial relations placed the relationship between Trade Unions and employers’ organisations (and, in some but not all countries, the state) at centre stage. Trade Unions are associated with three main economic and social functions: first, they provide benefits for their members, originally through the organisation of mutual insur-ance funds or craft apprenticeships; second, they engage with employers through formal and informal institutions, notably collective bargaining, in order to represent and promote their member’ interests and secure a ‘wage premium’ for members; and third, they represent their members’ interests by campaigning for legislative change (Sisson, 2011, p. 266). Their role in employment regulation through collective bargaining is seen as providing an employee voice function which can also be of benefit to employers (Freeman and Medoff, 1984). It is also argued that unions provide a valu-able service to members, and more broadly to the wider workforce and society, by promoting safety standards in the workplace and in products and services (Donado and Wälde, 2012). However, decreasing union membership since the 1980s, accompanied by the erosion of collective bargaining (as we shall see in the next chapter) and the union wage premium, has shifted the focus of academic study of employ-ment relations towards the workplace and individual employer-employee relations. Within the EU, aggregate union membership fell from 46 million to 43 million between 2000 and 2008, whilst the number of non-unionised employees rose from 120 million to 140 million (Visser, 2011, p. 25). This trend has been visible for some time; by the late 1990s, Trade Unions were already being described as ‘hollow shells’ (Addison et al, 2010; Hyman, 1997; Millward et al, 2000).

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  Employment Rights

  • Richard W. Painter, Keith Puttick, Ann Holmes(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Pluto Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 17 Trade Unions and Their Members The Legal Definitions There are two parts to the legal definition of a trade union. First, it must be an organisation (permanent or temporary) that consists wholly or mainly of workers of one or more descriptions. Second, its ‘principal purposes’ must include ‘the regulation of relations between workers of that description or those descriptions and employers or employers’ associations’. A federation, or similar organisation, may also be a ‘trade union’ if: (1) it consists of constituent or affiliated organisations that are themselves Trade Unions (or their representatives); and (2) its principal purposes include the regulation of relations between workers and employer or employers’ associations, or the regulation of relations between its constituent or affiliated organisation. (This phrase would probably encompass the TUC.) Such bodies as the International Transport Workers’ Federation are clearly within the definition. (TULR[C] Act 1992, s. 1). In British Association of Advisers and Lecturers in Physical Education v. National Union of Teachers and Others [1986] IRLR 497, the Court of Appeal gave a broad interpretation to this definition so as to include an association ‘concerned with the professional interests of its members’. ‘Regulation of Relations’ This phrase was considered in Midland Cold Storage Ltd v. Turner [1972] ICR 773 NIRC. The plaintiffs sought to prevent a joint shop stewards’ committee from taking industrial action. The action was brought to restrain the commission of certain ‘unfair industrial practices’ created by the Industrial Relations Act. It was necessary to establish that the committee was an ‘organisation of workers’, a term defined by s. 61 of the Act in substantially the same words as s. 1 (TULR[C]A above).

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  Trade Unions

  • Geoffrey Drage(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Chapter V

  The Action And Influence Of Trade Unions

  Advantages To Their Members

  THE objects aimed at by the majority of Trade Unions, and the means which are generally adopted to secure them, have already been pointed out. It remains to consider briefly how far the unions have, in fact, succeeded in accomplishing these objects, and how far it is desirable that they should do so.

  The first object of trade unionism is the maintenance of wages, and the principal means adopted for this end are the fixing of a minimum wage for the trade, the restriction of the number of wage-earners in the trade, and attempts to obtain advances in wages or to ward off reductions by requests and representations addressed to the employers and negotiations entered into with 140 them, or, if these means fail, by the withholding of labour. With regard to the success which has attended these means, it appeared in the case of almost every trade from which the Royal Commission on Labour received oral or written evidence that there has been a more or less recent advance in wages, and this was attributed by the workers themselves almost without exception to the influence of their organizations. In some instances the date at which the advance took place was said to be very shortly after the formation of the union, and in other instances the advance had been the direct result either of negotiations with the employers or of a strike conducted by the union. In the iron, shipbuilding, and kindred trades it has seemed possible to trace a general connection between the rate of wages in each locality and the extent of the workmen’s organization there, the wages being, generally speaking, highest where the organization is strongest; and in these and other trades the rates of wages received by unionists are usually higher than those received by non-unionists. On the other hand, it was urged by some employers, and by a few non-unionist workmen, that the rise in wages was not due to the action of the unions, but to increased prosperity of trade, and that the workers in those branches of industry in which there were no organizations had profited equally with the organized workers.

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  Russian Trade Unions and Industrial Relations in Transition

  • S. Ashwin, S. Clarke(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Trade union leaders are easily convinced that the enterprise cannot afford to pay a living wage, while the threat of redundancy inhibits workers from pressing wage demands in depressed enterprises, so that 'exit' prevails over 'voice' as high rates of labour mobility enable the more skilled and enterprising to get higher wages by changing jobs. In this context, trade union leaders see the most effective method of increasing wages, or even getting wages paid at all, to lie in the traditional forms of collaboration with the employer in the attempt to increase production, improve quality, expand sales and by lobbying local and national government for support. Such an approach was expressed by Yevgenii Makarov, then President of the Leningrad and Saint Petersburg Trade Union Federation, in his speech to his regional trade union conference in March 2000, in which he said 182 Trade Unions and Industrial Relations in Russia A breakthrough in wages - that is our historical mission. This is where we have to show ourselves. It is very difficult work. At every enterprise, it is necessary to keep abreast of the state of affairs in the economy, to study and to carry out measures to increase the economic efficiency of the separate enterprises, to keep and to create new jobs. The metallurgical trade union in Sverdlovsk has made the revival of socialist competition a priority direction of its activity, now called 'economic rivalry', one of its officers explaining, We have to resolve socio-economic questions. We watch how production is doing. If there is no production there will be nothing to distribute... our task is production, to participate through the system of trade union activists. We must help in the development of production. Employment protection The Trade Unions have seen a halving of their membership over the 1990s, associated with the collapse of employment in the traditional sectors of the economy.

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  Business Interests, Organizational Development and Private Interest Government

  An international comparative study of the food processing industry

  • Wyn Grant(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  This holds both for their contribution to GNP and — even though with some modifications — for their share in employment. Nevertheless, this important economic sector is treated rather with neglect on the part of the The Effect of Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining Systems 123 labour unions. This phenomenon which we find in many countries (A, CDN, CH, GB) can be illustrated in the light of some considerations the central organization of British labour unions made in order to warrant a coordination of different labour unions playing a role in Food and Drink Manufacturing. The TUC considered setting up an industry committee for food and drink but has commented: There is a question whether there are sufficient general underlying policy matters distinct to the sector to warrant the establishment of a TUC-committee, given the need for the TUC carefully to choose its priorities. The unions in any case already meet and discuss policy matters for their sector under the auspices of NEDO (National Economic Development Office)... The narrow basis of food and drink employing about 750,000 people (sic!) would not produce sufficient issues for consideration which are distingu-ishable from those considered by the Economic Committee. A survey of the number of labour unions which play a major role in the food processing industries under study shows that the situation within this sector does not considerably differ from the general structure of labour union organization in the respective countries. 2 Thus, in Great Britain and the Netherlands — countries with a competitive labour union system and a fragmentation of the labour union movement — we encounter six, or seven respectively, the largest number of labour unions. And in the Federal Republic, in Austria, and in Sweden, we have only two relevant labour union organizations — one which represents both blue-and white-collar workers' interests and one which repre-sents only white-collar interests.

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  Unemployment: Theory, Policy and Structure

  • Peder J. Pedersen, Reinhard Lund(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Unemployment and Trade Unions in Britain 219 less willing than most employers to offer the face-saving concessions which might justify pragmatic accommodation in the eyes of union activists. The most intense controversies within the trade union movement rarely connect directly with the predicament of the unemployed. The cynical might suggest that to a considerable extent unemployment has not represented a major problem for Trade Unions. Within bargaining units, realism has typically entailed a primary commitment to protecting the jobs of existing employees: co-operating in rationalisation measures if compulsory redundancy can be avoided or at least minimised, redefining the contours of the internal labour market in ways which allow greater job flexibility within the firm but greater obstacles to recruitment from outside. The security of those in relatively stable jobs can thus be underwritten at the expense of the more casually employed and of new entrants to the labour force. Such tendencies reflect and reinforce the character of British unions as organisations disproportionately composed of the relatively secure and advantaged (typically white, male and higher skilled) and with policies primarily oriented towards this constituency. The unemployed, conversely, are drawn dis-proportionately from segments of the working class less likely to be unionised and certainly less likely to exert major influence on union policy. Thus responses to unemployment within collective bargaining are conditioned by, and may further institutionalise, segmentation within the labour force. Such divisions may at times be overcome in industries where job loss is particularly severe (though the schisms within mining trade unionism show that this does not inevitably occur), and in localities dependent on such industries. Where sectional and accommodative defence proves inadequate, more co-ordinated and oppositional responses may be attempted.

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  Limits of Bargaining

  Capital, Labour and the State in Contemporary India

  • Achin Chakraborty, Subhanil Chowdhury, Supurna Banerjee, Zaad Mahmood(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  It can be argued that trade union organisations largely derive their characteristics, heritage, identity and strategic options from the specificities that characterise the region in which they function. This diverse array of influencing factors, which can roughly be called ‘economic’, influences and is further influenced by the political, social and historical factors. Understandably, the way all these factors are supposed to interact 1 to produce the trajectory of capital–labour relations in a subnational context is not easy to delineate, as they pose difficult methodological challenges. The aim of our study is therefore to develop a way of understanding the organised labour vis-à-vis the economy, the society and the polity in the state of WB, particularly in the urban sector of the state. One might ask, given the relative smallness of the size of the unionised workers in the organised industrial sector vis-à-vis the vast multitude of workers who are in the unorganised and informal sector living a precarious life, how meaningful is it to focus exclusively on the small group of ‘privileged’ workers? The answer can be found, to some extent, in the following words of Amartya Sen: There are different parts of the working population whose fortunes do not always move together, and in furthering the interests and demands of one group, it is easy to neglect the interests and demands of others. Indeed, it has often been alleged that labour organizations sometimes confine their advocacy to very narrow groups, such as unionized workers, and that narrowness of the outlook can feed the neglect of legitimate concerns of other groups and also of the costs imposed on them (unorganized labourers, or family-based workers, or the long-term unemployed, for example).

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  Unions in the 21st Century

  An International Perspective

  • T. Kochan, A. Verma(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  It can also imply cooperation, often uneasy, with other social movements which have never acquired the respectability gained by Trade Unions in most countries. Potentially it redefines unions as outsiders in a terrain where until recently the role of insiders was comforting and rewarding. Five responses: and no doubt there are many more. Are these comple- mentary or contradictory? To greater or lesser degree there are surely choices to be made: the ‘composite resolution’ through which unions have declared their commitment to incompatible objectives is surely no longer a productive option. Some of these choices, often difficult, are explored in my concluding section. Unions in the future Trade Unions in the 21 st century confront old dilemmas, but in new forms. Most fundamentally, these can be described as the who, the what and the how of trade union representation. 22 Unions in the 21 st Century Whose interests do Trade Unions represent? In simple terms one may define four categories: the qualified elite, the core workforce, peripheral employees and those outside employment. Historically, unions in many countries emerged on the foundations of a segment of the labour force with scarce skills, relatively high pay, and often either considerable job security or else a favourable position in the external labour market. Subsequently the ‘mass’ Trade Unions of the 20 th century tended to find their strongholds among the ‘core’ workforce of large-scale industrialism: workers whose labour market strength as individuals was often limited but who collectively could impose effective sanctions against recalcitrant employers. Unions which embraced socialist or communist (and sometimes also christian) ideologies typically claimed to extend their concerns to the peripheral workforce or to those outside employment altogether. Such claims in many countries have been more rhetorical than real.

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  The Challenge of Transition

  Trade Unions in Russia, China and Vietnam

  • Tim Pringle, Simon Clarke(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Trade Unions Adapting to New Conditions 79 and in collaboration with state inspectorates. Third, the Trade Unions have made some efforts to provide legal advice and to represent their members in individual and collective labour disputes. Fourth, the Trade Unions have made some efforts to strengthen their primary organisations. Finally, the Trade Unions have all sought to expand their membership and extend trade union organisation to the new private sector. In this chapter we will review the general directions and overall limitations of trade union reform in these areas in all three countries. In the next chapter we will look at examples of trade union best practice, concentrating primarily on the example of Russia, in order to identify the possibilities of further progress in trade union reform. Collective agreements In all three countries, the state determination of the terms and conditions of labour has been replaced by their determination on the basis of legally prescribed minima, supplemented by collective agreements between employers and employees. We have already seen the significant role played by Trade Unions in lobbying the government over legal regulation of the terms and conditions of labour, but legal regulation can only set the minimum standards, so the Trade Unions in all three countries have put steadily increasing emphasis on the negotiation of collective agreements, in the first instance at the enterprise level, supplemented by higher-level sectoral agreements and tripartite municipal, regional and national agreements. Collective agreements in principle make it possible to determine terms and conditions of employment which are acceptable both to the employer and to the employees. The coverage of collective agreements has become a formal indicator of the effectiveness of regional and local trade union organisations in all three countries.

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  Towards a New Industrial Democracy

  Workers' Participation in Industry

  • Michael Poole(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Figure 5.1 ). For instance, the diverse functions of Trade Unions under socialism and capitalism clearly influence views on appropriate institutions. Meanwhile, the recession of recent years has inevitably led to a retrenchment on the part of labour with respect to industrial democracy (in Britain this is obvious in the difference between the pre- and post-Bullock eras). By contrast, as we shall see, the new technologies (while posing threats to unions in many cases) have also been the spur to the formulation of different types of agreement involving extensive consultation and information-sharing between management, organized labour and the workforce as a whole.

  More especially, however, the attitudes of trade union officials on the question of workers’ participation and control would seem to be highly sensitive, both to the general conditions isolated so far in this study and to the degree of democracy obtaining within any given trade union. And this, in turn, depends a great deal on the organization and power of the rank and file and various factional activities amongst internal groupings within the union itself. Indeed, in Great Britain, an analysis of the assessment of leaders of the labour movement of workers’ participation and control would in fact reveal a number of distinct alterations of opinion since the First World War. In the early part of this century, differentiation of functions within unions was somewhat more diffuse than is the case today, when Trade Unions have evolved comparatively ‘mature’ organizational forms. The growth of general unions from the 1890s onwards had brought to the fore trade union leaders of an idealistic rather than of an administrative outlook, and although the leaders of craft unions remained solidly ‘conservative’, other upheavals of the time of course resulted in the emergence of the powerful shop-steward movement. In consequence, as Clegg (1972: 189) has argued:

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