Labour movement

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The labour movement[a] is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considered an instance of class conflict.

The labour movement developed as a response to

social housing and common ownership
.

History

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

— Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861[2]

Origins in Britain

Further information: History of trade unions in the United Kingdom

The labour movement has its origins in Europe during the

journeymen within the guilds would occasionally act together to demand better wage rates and conditions, and these ad hoc groupings can be considered the forerunners of the modern labour movement.[6] These formations were succeeded by trade unions forming in Britain in the 18th century. Nevertheless, without the continuous technological and international trade pressures during the Industrial Revolution, these trade unions remained sporadic and localised only to certain regions and professions, and there was not yet enough impetus for the formation of a widespread and comprehensive labour movement. Therefore the labour movement is usually marked as beginning concurrently with the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom, roughly around 1760-1830.[7]

16th and 17th centuries

In

Elizabethan Era apprentice laws such as the 1562 Statute of Artificers which placed the power to regulate wages and employment in the hands of local officials in each parish.[8][9] Parliament had been responding to petitions made by English weavers in 1555 who asserted that the owners were "giving much less wages and hire for weaving of clothes than they did in the past."[10] This legislation was intended to ensure just compensation for workers throughout the country so they could maintain a "competent livelihood". This doctrine of parliamentary involvement remained in place until about 1700 at which point the practice of wage regulation began to decline, and in 1757 parliament outright rescinded the Weavers Act of 1756, abandoning its power of wage regulation and signaling its newfound dedication to laissez-faire economics.[8][11]

The Elizabethan Apprentice Laws lasted in England until the early 19th century, but were becoming increasingly dead letter by the mid 18th century.[12] Consequently, from 1760 on, real wages began to fall and food prices began to rise giving increased motivation for political and social agitation.[13] As the guild system became increasingly obsolete and parliament abolished the old medieval labour protections, forswearing responsibility for maintaining living standards, the workers began to form the earliest versions of trade unions.[14] The workers on the lowest rungs found it necessary to organise in new ways to protect their wages and other interests such as living standards and working conditions.[15] The idea met with great resistance.

18th century

There is no record of enduring trade unions existing prior to the 18th century.

master tailors of London sent complaints to parliament claiming that their journeymen were illicitly combining to raise wage, actions which seemed to inspire other London tradesmen to combine as well.[20] Despite the presumption that unionising was illegal, it continued throughout the 18th century. [20]

In

shipwrights in Liverpool, or cutlers in Sheffield could use their clubs to unionize.[21] Workers could also use the ubiquitous friendly societies, which had increasingly cropped up British society since 1700, as cover for union activities.[23]

In politics, the

King George III, his followers protested and were fired upon by the government at the Massacre of St George's Fields in 1768, which resulted in a round of strikes and riots throughout England.[24] Wilkes headed the loose group of Radicals within parliament and his supporters formed the Society of the Bill of Rights in 1769.[24] Wilkes enjoyed some level of popularity with the masses in London until his career was destroyed by the Gordon Riots of 1780.[24] Other notable radicals at the time included John Jebb, Major Cartwright, and John Horne.[25]

A handbill for the London Corresponding Society, the first political society in Britain focused on working-class politics

With the advent of the

Jacobinism, responded with widescale political repression spearheaded by prime minister Pitt the Younger.[28][29] Paine was forced to flee the country after his work was deemed to be seditious, booksellers selling Paine's or other radical works were arrested, the Scottish reformers Thomas Muir, Rev. Thomas Fyshe Palmer, Joseph Gerrald, and Maurice Margarot were transported, and in 1794 the leadership of the L.C.S was arrested and tried.[30][31] Speech and public gatherings were tightly restricted by the Two Acts of 1795 which made certain words acts of treason, limited public gatherings to fifty people or fewer, and enforced licensing for anyone who wanted to speak in a public debate or lecture hall.[32] In 1797 the L.C.S was outlawed by parliament along with the United Irishmen, the United Scotsmen, and the United Britons, groups which had been advocating for the equal political representation of all men within the British Isles.[33] With these acts the political factions of the labour movement in Britain had been effectively crushed.[34] Additionally, forming unions or combinations was made illegal under legislation such as the 1799 Combination Act.[35][36] Despite this setback, trade unionism in Britain continued into the 19th century albeit illegally and under increasing hardship.[37][38] According to Gravener Henson, a labour leader from Nottingham
, the Combination Acts were:

a tremendous millstone round the neck of the local artisan, which has depressed and debased him to the earth: every act which he has attempted, every measure that he has devised to keep up or raise his wages, he has been told was illegal: the whole force of the civil power and influence of the district has been exerted against him because he was acting illegally... every committee and active man among them was regarded as a turbulent, dangerous instigator whom it was necessary to watch and crush if possible.[39]

Still, determined workers refused allow the law to entirely eradicate trade unionism, and in the face of collective bargaining some employers chose to forgo legal prosecution and instead cooperated with workers' demands.[36]

19th century

The Scottish weavers of

Elizabethan Era laws known as the apprentice laws which had been intended to protect wage rates and employment, but which had also fallen into serious disuse many decades before.[44][45]

The United Kingdom saw an increasing number of large-scale strikes, mainly in the north. First in 1810 among the miners in Northumberland and Durham called a general strike, and later, in 1812, a general strike among weavers was called in Scotland after employers refused to institute wage scales.[46] These strikes in the far north of Britain failed due to suppression by the police and the military. In 1811 in Nottinghamshire, a new movement known as the Luddite, or machine-breaker movement, began.[47] In response to declining living standards, workers all over the English Midlands started to sabotage and destroy the machinery used in textile production such as stocking frames. As the industry was still decentralized at the time and the movement was secretive, none of the leadership was ever caught and employers in the Midlands textile industry were forced to raise wages.[48]

In 1812 the first radical, socialist, pro-labour society, the 'Society of Spencean Philanthropists', named after the radical social agitator

William Cobbet, and Lord Cochrane, known as Radicals, rose to the head of the labour movement demanding the lowering of taxes, the abolition of pensions and sinecures, and an end to payments of the war debt.[50] This radicalism only increased in the aftermath of the end of the Napoleonic Wars as a general economic downturn in 1815 led to a revival in pro-labour politics. During this time half of each worker's wages was taxed away, unemployment greatly increased, and food prices would not drop from their war time highs.[51][52]

After the passage of the Corn Laws which prohibited the importation of cheap grains, to the benefit of the landed elite and detriment of the workers, there was mass rioting throughout Britain.[51] Many working-class papers started being published and received by a wide audience. These included Cobbet's "Weekly Political Register, Thomas Wooler's The Black Dwarf, and William Hone's Reformists's Register.[50] In addition, new political clubs focused on reform, called Hampden Clubs, were formed after a model suggested by Major Cartwright. In 1816 Henry Hunt gave a speech to a mass audience in London, dealing with issues such as universal suffrage and the Corn Laws. During his speech a group of Spenceans initiated a series of riots, later known as the Spa Fields riots during which rioters raided gunsmith shops and attempted to overtake the Tower of London. This outbreak of lawlessness led to a government crackdown on agitation in 1817 known as the Gagging Acts, which included the suppression of the Spencean society, a suspension of habeas corpus, and an extension of power to magistrates which gave them the ability to ban public gatherings.[53] In protest of the Gagging Acts, as well as the poor working conditions in the textile industry, workers in Manchester attempted to march on London to deliver petitions in a demonstration known as the Blanketeers march.[54] The Blanketeers, named after the blankets they brought to sleep on the roadside during their journey, were however intercepted, with most participants either arrested or chased off by the British military.

From this point onward the British government also began using hired spies and

Pentrich Rising, which led to the leadership being indicted on treason charges and executed.[55] A similar incident was concocted by the government spy George Edwards in 1820, wherein he convinced various Spenceans to agree to participate in the Cato Street Conspiracy, a supposed plan to murder the current members of the British cabinet.[56]

A contemporary depiction of the Peterloo Massacre which occurred on 16 August 1819

In spite of government suppression, the labour movement in Britain continued, and 1818 marked a new round of strikes as well as the first attempt at establishing a single national union that encompassed all trades, led by

15th Hussars attacked the attendees of a crowd composed of about 80,000 people that had gathered to legally demonstrate support of the political reformers and listen to a speech by Henry Hunt.[55] The attack resulted in 18 deaths and up to 500 injuries, all suffered on the part of the demonstrators. The British government responded with another round of draconian measures aimed at putting down the labour movement, known as the Six Acts.[57]

In 1819 the social reformer Francis Place initiated a reform movement aimed at lobbying parliament into abolishing the anti-union Combination Acts.[58] Unions were legalised in the Combination Acts of 1824 and 1825, however some union actions, such as anti-scab activities were restricted.[59] In 1834 the Tolpuddle Martyrs of Dorset were punished for swearing secret oaths and transported.

Chartism was possibly the first mass working-class labour movement in the world, originating in England during the mid-19th century between 1838 and 1848. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838, which stipulated the six main aims of the movement as:

  • Suffrage for all men age 21 and over
  • Voting by secret ballot
  • Equal-sized
    constituencies
  • Pay for Members of Parliament
  • An end to the need for a property qualification for Parliament
  • Annual election of Parliament

Eventually, after Chartism died out, Britain adopted the first five reforms.[60] The Chartist movement had a lasting impact in the development of the political labour movement.[61]

In Britain, the term "new unionism" was used in the 1880s to describe an innovative form of trade unionism. The new unions were generally less exclusive than craft unions and attempted to recruit a wide range of workers.[62] They recruited unskilled and semi-skilled workers, such as dockers, seamen, gasworkers and general labourers. To encourage more workers to join, these new unions kept their entrance fees and contributions at a relatively low level. Some new unions, such as the Dockers' Union and the Gasworkers developed in the direction of general unionism.

Worldwide

The International Workingmen's Association, the first attempt at international coordination, was founded in London in 1864. The major issues included the right of the workers to organize themselves, and the right to an 8-hour working day. In 1871 workers in France rebelled and the Paris Commune was formed. From the mid-19th century onward the labour movement became increasingly globalised:

Labour has been central to the modern globalization process. From issues of the embodied movement of workers to the emergence of a global division of labour, and organized responses to capitalist relations of production, the relevance of labour to globalization is not new, and it is far more significant in shaping the world than is usually recognized.[63]

The movement gained major impetus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the

Catholic Social Teaching tradition which began in 1891 with the publication of Pope Leo XIII's foundational document, Rerum novarum
, also known as "On the Condition of the Working Classes," in which he advocated a series of reforms including limits on the length of the work day, a living wage, the elimination of child labour, the rights of labour to organise, and the duty of the state to regulate labour conditions.

Throughout the world, action by labourists has resulted in reforms and

Mary Harris Jones, better known as "Mother Jones", and the National Catholic Welfare Council were important in the campaign to end child labour in the United States
during the early 20th century.

Historically labour markets have often been constrained by national borders that have restricted movement of workers. Labour laws are also primarily determined by individual nations or states within those nations. While there have been some efforts to adopt a set of international labour standards through the International Labour Organisation (ILO), international sanctions for failing to meet such standards are very limited. In many countries labour movements have developed independently and represent those national boundaries.

Australia

Further information: Australian labour movement

Brazil

Further information: Trade unions in Brazil

Germany

Further information:
History of Social Democracy in Germany

Japan

Further information: Labor unions in Japan

South Korea

Further information: Labor movement of South Korea

South Africa

Further information: Trade unions in South Africa

Spain

Further information: Labor movement in Spain

Sweden

Further information: Swedish labour movement

United States

Further information: Labor unions in the United States and History of the socialist movement in the United States

Overview

Trade unions

See also: Trade union

Political parties

See also: List of Labour parties, List of social democratic parties, and List of socialist parties

Modern labour parties originated from an increase in organising activities in Europe and

European colonies during the 19th century, such as the Chartist movement in the United Kingdom during 1838–48.[64]

In 1891, localised labour parties were formed, by trade union members in British colonies in

Commonwealth of Australia, several labour parties amalgamated to form the Australian Labor Party
(ALP).

The

Trade Union Congress
.

While archetypal labour parties are made of direct union representatives, in addition to members of geographical branches, some union federations or individual unions have chosen not to be represented within a labour party and/or have ended association with them.

Many individuals and political groups otherwise considered to represent ruling classes may be part of, and active in, the labour movement.[citation needed]

Cooperatives

See also: Cooperative and History of the cooperative movement

Culture

Labour festivals

Main article: Labour festival

Labour festivals have long been a part of the labour movement.[65] Often held outdoors in the summer, the music, talks, food, drink, and film have attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees each year. Labour festival is a yearly feast of all the unionism gathering, to celebrate the fulfillment of their goals, to bring solutions to certain hindrances and to reform unjust actions of their employers or government.

Topics

Racial equality

A degree of strategic biracial cooperation existed among

black and white dockworkers on the waterfronts of New Orleans, Louisiana during the early 20th century. Although the groups maintained racially separate labour unions, they coordinated efforts to present a united front when making demands of their employers. These pledges included a commitment to the "50-50" or "half-and-half" system wherein a dock crew would consist of 50% black and 50% white workers and agreement on a single wage demand to reduce the risk of ship owners pitting one race against the other. Black and white dockworkers also cooperated during protracted labour strikes, including the general levee strikes in 1892
and 1907 as well as smaller strikes involving skilled workers such as screwmen in the early 1900s:

Negroes in the United States read the history of labour and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us [...] They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience and protests are becoming our everyday tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table [...] Our needs are identical to labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures [...] That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.

— Martin Luther King, Jr, "If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins", December 11, 1961[66]

Contemporary

Development of an international labour movement

With ever-increasing levels of international trade and increasing influence of multinational corporations, there has been debate and action among labour movements to attempt international co-operation. This has resulted in renewed efforts to organize and collectively bargain internationally. A number of international union organizations have been established in an attempt to facilitate international collective bargaining, to share information and resources and to advance the interests of workers generally.

See also

Labour federations:

Political ideologies:

Topics:

National movements

Notes

  1. ^ Alternatively labor; See American and British English spelling differences.

References

  1. ISBN 978-0826451736
    . If 'labourism' sought to protect and defend the interests of labour in relation to this system, 'socialism' sought to change the system itself...
  2. ^ Selections from the Letters, Speeches, and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, by Abraham Lincoln, edited by Ida Minerva Tarbell, Ginn, 1911 / 2008, pg 77
  3. ^ Cole, G.D.H. (1952). A Short History of the British Working Class Movement: 1789-1947. George Allen & Unwin LTD. pp. 15–18.
  4. ^ Cole 1952, p. 11-12.
  5. ISBN 9780722227237. Archived
    from the original on 2021-09-26. Retrieved 2021-09-26. the Craft Guild was looked upon as the representative of the interests, not of any one class alone, but of the three distinct and somewhat antagonistic elements of modern society, the capitalist entrepreneur, the manual worker, and the consumer at large.
  6. ^ Cole 1952, p. 13.
  7. ^ Cole 1952, p. 9:The industrial revolution, which is the real starting-point of the story of organised labour is generally said to have taken place in this country between about 1760 and 1830
  8. ^
    OCLC 1004389945. Archived
    from the original on 25 December 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  9. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 41-42: "In 1563, indeed, Parliament expressly charged itself with securing to all wage-earners a "convenient livelihood"
  10. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 40-41: "in the middle of the century the weavers found their customary earnings dwindling, they managed so far to combine as to make their voices heard at Westminster. In 1555 we find them complaining "that the rich do many ways oppress them" by putting unapprenticed men to work..."some also by giving much less wages and hire for weaving of clothes than they did in the past"
  11. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 43-45.
  12. ^ Cole 1952, p. 39-40.
  13. OCLC 1120984. Archived
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  14. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 35-37.
  15. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 19-20: "the artisans of the eighteenth century sought to perpetuate those legal or customary regulations of their trade which, as they believed, protected their own interests. When these regulations fell into disuse the workers combined to secure their enforcement."
  16. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 20-21: "We have failed to discover...any evidence to the existence prior to 1700 of continuous associations of wage-earners for the maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment"
  17. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 21:" In the early years of the eighteenth century we find isolated complaints of combinations "lately entered into" by the skilled workers in certain trades"
  18. ^ a b Cole 1952, p. 35.
  19. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 39-40.
  20. ^ a b c Pelling 2016, p. 12-13.
  21. ^ a b c d e Morton & Tate 1975, p. 18-19.
  22. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 48.
  23. ^ Pelling 2016, p. 10-11.
  24. ^ a b c d Morton & Tate 1975, p. 12-13.
  25. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 14.
  26. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 22-23.
  27. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 23:This it did quite rapidly and by the end of 1792 may have totalled 3,000
  28. ^ Cole 1952, p. 38:Pitt's measures for carrying through this policy of repression were skilfully designed. We have seen how he rooted out the Corresponding Societies, and killed for a generation even the middle-class movement for reform. Legal persecution, backed up by the evidence of spies and informers, and by counter-propaganda subsidised by the State, was adequate for this purpose. The factory and mining districts had to be held down by more vigorous methods. In addition to sending into every working-class body that could be found spies, informers, and even provocative agents, and so disrupting the working-class movements, because no man in them knew whether he could trust his neighbour... he built barracks at strategic points throughout the country, and used his concentrated military force in order to overawe the people.
  29. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 23-24:The Government was thrown into panic by this new working-class radicalism. A whole series of repressive measures were put into operation
  30. ^ Cole 1952, p. 30.
  31. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 25-27.
  32. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 29.
  33. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 31.
  34. ^ Cole 1952, p. 32.
  35. ^ Pelling 2016, p. 16.
  36. ^ a b Morton & Tate 1975, p. 33-35.
  37. ^ Cole 1952, p. 39Overawed by military force, ceaselessly spied and reported upon by agents of the Government or the local magistrates, liable to severe sentences for conspiracy under common law or for violation of the Combination Acts if they attempted any concerted action, it is not surprising that for a long time the factory workers and miners failed to create any stable combinations. It is more surprising that they managed to combine at all.
  38. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 38:the Combination Act failed in its great object of destroying trade unionism, but this is far from saying that it was entirely ineffective.
  39. OCLC 1120848980. Archived
    from the original on 2021-12-25. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
  40. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 35.
  41. ^ a b Sally Graves (1939). A History of Socialism. Hogarth Press. pp. 12–14.
  42. ^ Cole 1952, p. 40-41.
  43. ^
    ISBN 9781107111653. Archived
    from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-09-25.
  44. ^ Cole 1952, p. 40:In 1813 the clauses for the regulation of wages in the Elizabethan law were formally repealed, and in 1814 the apprenticeship clauses were also abrogated"
  45. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 53-55:In 1814....the Act of 54 Geo. III. c. 96 swept away the apprenticeship clauses of the statute, and with them practically the last remnant of that legislative protection of the Standard of Life which survived form the Middle Ages."
  46. ^ Cole 1952, p. 41.
  47. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 36.
  48. ^ Cole 1952, p. 41-42.
  49. ^ Cole 1952, p. 44-45.
  50. ^ a b Cole 1952, p. 45-46.
  51. ^ a b Morton & Tate 1975, p. 40-41.
  52. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 82-83.
  53. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 42-43.
  54. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 43.
  55. ^ a b c d Cole 1952, p. 47-49.
  56. ^ Morton & Tate 1975, p. 45.
  57. ^ Cole 1952, p. 49-50.
  58. ^ Webb & Webb 1902, p. 85-86.
  59. ^ Pelling 2016, p. 22-23.
  60. ^ "The Chartist movement". parliament.uk. UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  61. ISSN 0018-2648
    .
  62. ^ David, Mary. "Timeline: 1880–1914". www.unionhistory.info. London Metropolitan University. Archived from the original on 8 May 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  63. ^ James, Paul; O'Brien, Robert (2007). Globalization and Economy, Vol. 4: Globalizing Labour. London: Sage Publications. pp. ix–x. Archived from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  64. ^ "The National Archives Learning Curve | Power, Politics and Protest | The Chartists". www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 2021-03-16. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  65. TheGuardian.com. 15 July 2011. Archived
    from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  66. ISBN 0-06-064691-8
    , pg 202–203

Further reading

External links

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