Organising and The History of Trade Unions
Trade unions originally existed to organise their members democratically, and during their early growth, they typically put a strong emphasis on active recruitment and militant rank and file action, including strikes. By no means did they always unambiguously act in the interests of their members, but they were perceived of as organisations which existed to struggle for collective action. Particularly since the end of World War II, however, the trade unions have tended more and more to act as service providers for their members: providing legal advice, training and so on; eschewing mass-based, militant action. During the '60s, '70s and onward, this trend deepened, with union density among the workforce falling all the while, until it could be measured at between 10% and 20% in many industrialised countries. In the context of this history, the organising model is in principle not so much a new conception, as an attempt to recapture the essence of the labour movement. However, the way in which it has been recaptured has been quite particular.
Read more about this topic: Organising Model
Famous quotes containing the words organising, history, trade and/or unions:
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“a highly respectable gondolier,
Who promised the Royal babe to rear
And teach him the trade of a timoneer
With his own beloved brattling.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“The newly-formed clothing unions are ready to welcome her; but woman shrinks back from organization, Heaven knows why! It is perhaps because in organization one find the truest freedom, and woman has been a slave too long to know what freedom means.”
—Katharine Pearson Woods (1853–1923)