David Palmer, Ross Shanahan, and Martin Shanahan, eds., Australian Labor History Reconsidered. Adelaide: Australian Humanities Press, 1999. ix + 244 pp. $29.95 cloth.

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 222-224
Author(s):  
Renate Howe

An objective of this collection is to bring the history of the Australian labor movement to international attention. The editors introduce the collection with a brief overview of Australian labor history, emphasizing differences between the Australian and American experiences. The introduction argues that a unique aspect of Australian labor history is “laborism,” which is defined as the central place of the labor movement in Australian culture, as compared with the more marginal position of the labor movement in America. In Australia, this centrality is reflected in the embedding of trade unions and labor in the state through wage-fixing tribunals, a social security system designed to support the families of male wage earners, and the Australian Labor Party's strong links to the trade union movement. The introduction is informative and especially benefits from the insights of David Palmer, an American historian teaching at Adelaide's Flinders University. However, the introduction was apparently written later at the suggestion of an American reader and has thus not been fully integrated into the structure of the book.

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-273
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Kowalski

On January 1, 1967, the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions became the first organization of British academics to affiliate with the Trades Union Congress. Over the next ten years such major educational bodies as the National Union of Teachers, the National Association of Schoolmasters, and the Association of University Teachers followed its lead and sought formal alignment with the organized labor movement in Britain. Participation in the T.U.C. meant identification as a trade union. This issue lay at the very heart of a lengthy debate within the A.T.T.I. over affiliation. For affiliation required a fundamental reappraisal of the A.T.T.I.'s traditional professional identity and organizational principles, one that ultimately led its members to recognize and acknowledge both the Association's primary role as a teachers' trade union and its common interests with the labor movement. The issue generated similar debate within many British education associations and signaled the emergence of teachers as active participants in the trade union movement. But it was an issue not easily resolved given teachers' historical identity as professionals. A.T.T.I. presence in the T.U.C. helped other associations move in the same direction and eased acceptance of this new identity in many instances. The A.T.T.I. decision to affiliate thus represents an important turning point in the history of that Association and the relationship between academics and the organized labor movement in Britain.


2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Sovich

In 1994, the Palestinian labor movement, crippled by years of factionalism and Israeli oppression, expected that the arrival of the Palestinian Authority would enable it to reorient its priorities from national politics to workers' rights. This article examines the trajectory of the trade union movement since Oslo and particularly the reasons for its ongoing factionalism and failure to meet its objectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 6-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. R. Berest

The attempt to analyze and show the important role of Lviv printers and to describe their role in the development of Galician society has been made in the article. This attempt has been made on the basis of documents, the principle of historicism, scientific and objective approach. The importance and problematic of the comprehensive study of the oldest history of the creation, formation and development of Lviv printers’ professional co-operation of mutual assistance has been highlighted, and the history and activities of this organization in stages have been described. In general, trade unions emerged as an independent united self-defense organizations and they were formed in the form of workers’ associations and mutual assistance funds. During the first half of the nineteenth century the crystallization of the activities of trade unions happened under the influence of various measures, hold by the administrations, the police and the authorities. This contributed to the further unification of labor and the creation of all-city union of printers in Lviv. It is quite logical that the basis of their actions was their desire to achieve and get the working solidarity, mutual support and assistance. The activities of the trade union were regulated by the statutes. First of all, the purpose of the establishment and operation of the organization was socio-economic, cultural and educational ones. Those purposes were approved by the relevant state authorities and, thus, prevented trade unions from participating in political life.The short period of the 1860-1880s can be considered to be a separate stage in the process of the formation of the mass trade union movement in Galicia. Together with the trade unions of printers, settlers, brokers, masons, carpenters, builders, tanneries, metal workers, doctors, pharmacists, tradesmen, postmen, civil servants, lawyers and many others united and became active partners of the region.The problem, which has been investigated in the article, has a valuable scientific significance as it allows to solve one of the most important issues: to get the historical understanding of activities of Lviv trade union organizations, which have not been thoroughly studied yet.


2016 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 186-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danny Roberts ◽  
Lauren Marsh

The achievements of the labor movement in the Caribbean are generally historicized without highlighting the contribution of labor colleges to the function and survivability of trade unions. For more than fifty years, labor colleges have played a critical role in developing the knowledge and skill sets of union members who had an interest in labor studies. Many will attribute the heydays of the Caribbean labor movement in the mid-1900s to the intellectual thrust given to the trade union movement by labor colleges. During this period, trade unions relied heavily on labor colleges for intellectual support and advice primarily on matters that required in-depth academic investigation. Support from the labor colleges enhanced the reputation of the labor movement by shifting popular notions that the trade union movement consisted only of the poor and illiterate working class. The effects of these parallel training activities have been positive for both the leadership of the trade union movement and the overall impact they have had on labor-management relationships. There has been a noted change in the pattern of trade union leadership where “the first generation leaders, considered by many as demagogic and messianic, have given way increasingly to a younger and more formally educated second and third generation leadership”.


1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio F. Biagini

This paper is a study of the relationship between economic culture and trade union economic subculture during the years in which both the Victorian trade union movement and the classical economists' view of it reached their maturity. This period represented a turning point in the history of the movement, which achieved a full institutionalization and legitimation. The Webbs, and a historiographic tradition since them, maintained that these results were obtained at the price of a complete submission to the ideological hegemony of the bourgeoisie. In the 1960s R. V. Clements challenged this view and argued that such a subordination had never taken place, and that trade unionists had managed to keep their independent views – especially at the level of economic thought. Recent discussions have been content to stress the sound and ‘aseptic’ pragmatism of the working men, and the abstruse dogmatism of the economists. A footnote quoting Clements' article seems to be all that readers can reasonably ask for. The possibility of an alternative interpretation – namely, that classical economics could actually be useful to trade union strategies and interests – has not yet been sufficiently considered. The aim of this paper is to argue that there is much evidence in support of such an interpretation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakhela Buhlungu

From 1973 to 2000, the emerging black union movement in South Africa made efforts to construct a collectivist and democratic organizational culture. The development and decline of this culture correspond with three phases in the history of the black trade union movement. Political and economic changes in the past fifteen years have affected this culture, specifically the unions' political engagement and new pressures arising out of globalization. However, although it is true that union democracy in the South African labor movement is under stress, it is premature to conclude that this labor movement has become oligarchic.


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