A General Union is a trade union (called labor union in American English) which represents workers from all industries and companies, rather than just one organization or a particular sector, as in a craft union or industrial union. A general union differs from a union federation or trades council in that its members are individuals, not unions.
The creation of general unions, from the early nineteenth century in the United Kingdom and somewhat later elsewhere, occurred around the same time as efforts began to unionise workers in new industries, in particular those where employment could be irregular.
Proponents of general unions claim that their broader range of members allows more opportunities for solidarity action and better coordination in general strikes and the like. Detractors claim that the broader remit means they tend to be more bureaucratic and respond less effectively to events in a single industry.
In the United Kingdom, general unions include the GMB and the TGWU. In Australia a good example of a general union is the Australian Workers Union.
Famous quotes containing the words general and/or union:
“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle- class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)