A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of labour unions or union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, region, or provincial or state level. They may also be based on a particular industry rather than geographical area, as for example, in the Maritime Council of Australia which co-ordinated the waterfront and maritime unions involved in the 1890 Australian Maritime Dispute.
Affiliates of labour councils are trade union branches or locals, and occasionally other labour movement organisations. City-wide or provincial councils may have district or regional labour council affiliates as well as trade unions. Some labour councils restrict their membership to organisations which are affiliated with a particular national trade union federation, such as many state-level labour councils in the United States, which are chartered from the AFL-CIO national confederation.
Finances are usually obtained through an affiliation fee, often based on a per capita tax on the membership of affiliates. In Australia, Trades and Labour Councils often have their own hall and offices known as a Trades Hall, with the term Trades Hall often used as a colloquial expression for the Labour Council or Trades Hall Council.
Read more about Labour Council: Note On Usage, History
Famous quotes containing the words labour and/or council:
“A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“I haven’t seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were asked this week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company’s behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)