Trade union
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"You mean, apart from maternity leave, superannuation, workers compensation, medicare, occupational health and safety laws, paid annual leave and collective bargaining?" --promotional film for trade unions, directed by Laura Dawn, inspired by the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?)sketch from Monty Python's Life of Brian "What capitalists failed to accomplish by a century of repressive measures against trade union leaders, the World Trade Organization, enthusiastically endorsed by social democrat governments around the world, is doing for them. When barriers to imports are removed, nationally based trade unions are undermined. Now when workers in high-wage countries demand better conditions, the bosses can threaten to close the factory and import the goods from China, or some other country where wages are low and trade unionists will not cause trouble." --A Darwinian Left (1999) by Peter Singer, p. 5 |
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A trade union is an organization of workers who have come together to achieve common goals; such as protecting the integrity of its trade, improving safety standards, and attaining better wages, benefits (such as vacation, health care, and retirement), and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by the creation of a monopoly of the workers.
See also
- Labor federation competition in the United States
- Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
- List of trade unions
- New Unionism
- Project Labor Agreement
- Professional association
- Salt (union organizing)
- Textile and clothing trade unions
- Union busting