scholarly journals Manufacturing Consensus? New Zealand Press Attitudes Toward the Labour Movement in 1890

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Keating
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
National Significance ◽  
Transformative Impact

<p>This thesis investigates the attitudes of New Zealand newspapers to the social and economic tensions exacerbated by the emergence of a newly assertive labour movement in 1890, culminating in the August-November Maritime Strike, and the 5 December General Election. Through detailed analysis of labour reporting in six newspapers (Evening Post, Grey River Argus, Lyttelton Times, New Zealand Herald, Otago Daily Times, Press) this thesis examines contemporary conceptions of New Zealand society and editors’ expectations of trade unions in a colony that emphasised its egalitarian mythology. Although the establishment of a national press agency in 1880 homogenised the distribution of national and international news, this study focuses on local news and editorial columns, which generally reflected proprietors’ political leanings. Through these sites of ideological contest, conflicting representations of the ascendant trade union movement became apparent. While New Zealand newspapers sympathised with the striking London dockers in 1889, the advent of domestic industrial tensions provoked a wider range of reactions in the press. Strikes assumed a national significance, and the divisions between liberal and conservative newspapers narrowed. To varying degrees both considered militant action by organised labour a threat to the colony’s peace and prosperity – sentiments that pervaded their reporting. The New Zealand Maritime Strike confirmed these prejudices and calcified the perception of organised labour’s malevolence. Despite the year’s upheavals, this thesis contends that the press struggled to comprehend labour’s political ambitions, ignoring the unprecedented mobilisation of thousands of new voters, shifting public opinion, and the transformative impact of electoral reform. Distracted by the mainstream political obsession with land reform and convinced that public prejudices, stoked by their own reporting, would obviate a labour presence in the new parliament, the victory of the Liberal-labour coalition confounded the publishing establishment.</p>

scholarly journals Manufacturing Consensus? New Zealand Press Attitudes Toward the Labour Movement in 1890

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Keating
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
National Significance ◽  
Transformative Impact

<p>This thesis investigates the attitudes of New Zealand newspapers to the social and economic tensions exacerbated by the emergence of a newly assertive labour movement in 1890, culminating in the August-November Maritime Strike, and the 5 December General Election. Through detailed analysis of labour reporting in six newspapers (Evening Post, Grey River Argus, Lyttelton Times, New Zealand Herald, Otago Daily Times, Press) this thesis examines contemporary conceptions of New Zealand society and editors’ expectations of trade unions in a colony that emphasised its egalitarian mythology. Although the establishment of a national press agency in 1880 homogenised the distribution of national and international news, this study focuses on local news and editorial columns, which generally reflected proprietors’ political leanings. Through these sites of ideological contest, conflicting representations of the ascendant trade union movement became apparent. While New Zealand newspapers sympathised with the striking London dockers in 1889, the advent of domestic industrial tensions provoked a wider range of reactions in the press. Strikes assumed a national significance, and the divisions between liberal and conservative newspapers narrowed. To varying degrees both considered militant action by organised labour a threat to the colony’s peace and prosperity – sentiments that pervaded their reporting. The New Zealand Maritime Strike confirmed these prejudices and calcified the perception of organised labour’s malevolence. Despite the year’s upheavals, this thesis contends that the press struggled to comprehend labour’s political ambitions, ignoring the unprecedented mobilisation of thousands of new voters, shifting public opinion, and the transformative impact of electoral reform. Distracted by the mainstream political obsession with land reform and convinced that public prejudices, stoked by their own reporting, would obviate a labour presence in the new parliament, the victory of the Liberal-labour coalition confounded the publishing establishment.</p>

Globalisation and the dilemmas of international trade unionism

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Economic Developments

This article presents the author's reflections on the possibilities of a restructuring of the international trade union movement, on the basis of a collective research project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which seeks to open a debate within the movement over the lessons to be learned from its history as a guide for its future action. The most important question facing the trade union movement today is what is generally called 'globalisation', a phenomenon that goes back many years, both in terms of economic developments and labour struggles. From this perspective, the paper examines the basis for the existing divisions of the international labour movement, before going over the work of the ICFTU and of the International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) to achieve the regulation of the multinational corporations and of the international economy, and concluding on the prospects for unity of action in the unions' work around the global economy.

scholarly journals The International Trade-Union Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
International Labour Organization ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Union Movement

Accounts of the founding of the International Labour Organization (ILO) usually emphasize the role of social-reformist intellectuals and politicians. Despite the indisputable role of these actors, however, the international labour movement was the actual initiator of this process. Over the course of World War I, the international labour movement proposed a comprehensive programme of protection for the working classes, which, conceived as compensation for its support of the war, was supposed to become an international agreement after the war. In 1919, politicians took up this programme in order to give social stability to the postwar order. However, the way in which the programme was instituted disappointed the high expectations of trade unions regarding the fulfilment of their demands. Instead, politicians offered them an institution that could be used, at best, to realize trade-union demands. Despite open disappointment and sharp critique, however, the revived International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) very quickly adapted itself to this mechanism. The IFTU now increasingly oriented its international activities around the lobby work of the ILO.

scholarly journals The depletion of narrative resources in the Kenyan trade union movement.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-713
Author(s):  
Collins Ogutu Miruka
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Qualitative Assessment ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Labour Legislation ◽  
Depth Interviews

We discuss in this study the problems of mobilization and effectiveness faced by Kenyan trade unions. In a country with high levels of unemployment and weak labour legislation, it is imperative that the labour movement devise ways of remaining relevant and effective. We combine in-depth interviews with a qualitative assessment of secondary documents on trade unions in Kenya. We do this by looking at topics addressed, characterizations of unions as well as major actors such as union leaders, workers, and political leaders. We argue that labour leaders need to enrich their vocabularies of persuasion in order to neutralize the current discourses around trade unionism in Kenya. Such an approach would enable the union leadership to acquire new repertoires of action to enhance their capacity to mobilize.

scholarly journals Getting to the CORE of the Chicago Teachers’ Union Transformation

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brogan
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Teachers Union ◽  
The Core ◽  
The North ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Teacher Unionism

This article draws on a comparative study of urban change and rank-and-file teacher rebellion in New York City and Chicago, to explore the contemporary dynamics of what Jamie Peck (2013) calls “austerity urbanism” and its relationship to a rebirth of a social justice, grassroots teacher unionism in US urban centres. Tracing the trajectories of one group of rank-and-file teacher dissidents in Chicago, it argues that municipal unions are uniquely situated to lead the fight against austerity urbanism and the crisis tendencies of contemporary capitalism. To do this, however, trade unions will need to be reinvented and a different form of working class politic forged, grounded both in and outside of the trade union movement. Only then may we see organized labour in North America contribute to a movement for radical and systemic change, which is key to building a more socially just urbanism and society more broadly. The case of the Chicago teachers is highly instructive for activists, both inside and outside of the North American labour movement.

Post-Fordism: Historical Break or Utopian Fantasy?

1992 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Fieldes ◽  
Tom Bramble
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Niche Markets ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Workforce Skills ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Consensual Approach

Since the mid-1980s there has been substantial debate about changes in the nature of production systems in Europe and North America. A range of writers, operating within a paradigm of post-Fordism, contend that traditional Western manufacturing methods, based on mass markets, mass production and Taylorism, are being replaced by strategies premised on niche markets, small-batch production and the upgrading of workforce skills and autonomy. In Australia it has been argued, chiefly by Mathews, that such changes have important implications for the labour movement. In particular, the new circumstances require a move from a confrontationist to a consensual approach to industrial relations by the trade unions. These claims are challenged in this article, both because of the determinist framework that informs them and because of their inability to explain the complexity of the changes that are taking place in the areas they address. An interpretation of recent developments, which places competitive accumulation at its centre, is suggested as an alternative paradigm. The implication that a post-Fordist strategy will reinforce the strength and integrity of the trade union movement is also questioned in the light of the later experience of the Accord.

scholarly journals A Cautionary Tale

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Ilkka Kärrylä
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Profit Sharing ◽  
Wage Earner ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Economic Democracy ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bonus Payments

This article examines how the Swedish idea of collective wage-earner funds was received and discussed in Finland in the 1970s and 1980s, especially by the Social Democrats and the trade union movement. The initial proposal entailed profit-sharing with workers and would have made the trade unions co-owners of private enterprise. The Finnish Social Democrats were influenced by the proposal but devised a more moderate idea for company-specific ‘cooperation funds’. The Swedish debate was interpreted in Finland as a cautionary tale of too radical demands causing severe political and labour market conflicts. In negotiations with Finnish employers and bourgeois parties, the idea was further modified into voluntary ‘personnel funds,’ which in effect meant a possibility for personal bonus payments and stock-saving for employees in profitable firms. The outcome was closer to traditional bourgeois and employer ideas of people’s capitalism than to social democratic ideas of ‘economic democracy,’ which had justified the wage-earner fund proposal.

Trade Unionism and Caste in South India

1976 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Ramaswamy
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Diverse Workforce ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Beaten Track

Studies of Indian organized labour have followed the beaten track for three decades. In their obsessive concern with the political links of trade unions and their control by middle-class intellectuals and professionals, the students of Indian labour have barely paused to consider the social consequences of unionization. The origin of the labour movement in India goes back to the turn of the century, and over five million workers are now unionzed. A movement of this proportion cannot be without consequence for the attitudes and behaviour of workers. In the specifically Indian context the crucial question is how a trade union movement whose very cornerstone, at least ideally, is a sense of camaraderie among a socially diverse workforce interacts with a traditional society whose foundation is the caste system.

scholarly journals Trade Union Education and Life Long Learning in Modern Greece —A Critical and Empirical Approach Concerning the Case of GSEE

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Nikos Fotopoulos ◽  
Christo Goulas ◽  
Vicky Karra
Keyword(s):  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Life Long Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Union Education

<p>The issue of lifelong adult learning has a long tradition in several EU countries and specifically in the field of the trade unions which seem to function not only as having a defending role towards their employees but an educational one as well. In light of the educational philosophy in the field of adult education, Greece still lags behind most of Europe in its modernization policies of the education system thus widening the social and democratic deficit.</p> <p>Based on this reasoning, in the context of lifelong learning, KANEP and INE/GSEE designed the training program “Education and Work” at a time when the applied policies of lifelong learning are faced with a number of challenges, succeeding though to combine a wide range of theoretical and technical methodological tools, in order to fully meet the several needs of the members of the trade union movement. So, at a time when the forces of labour gradually collapse, the trade union educational intervention in Greece becomes of vital importance in order for the vocational and social progress of the workers to be ensured.</p>

scholarly journals THE GLOBAL UNION RESEARCH NETWORK: A POTENTIAL FOR INCREMENTAL INNOVATION?

Just Labour ◽  
1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verena Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Incremental Innovation ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
National Affair ◽  
Three Stages

One of the current paradoxes for trade unions is that organizing is an essentially local or national affair whilst the most pressing challenge for unions, which is globalization, can only be faced in a global context. This paper analyzes to what extent the Global Union Research Network (GURN) has the potential to be regarded as an incremental innovation for research within the international labour movement. The paper argues that the GURN can become an incremental innovation and there are three stages to this argument. Firstly the GURN in conceptualized within the international trade union movement. Secondly the term 'innovation' is defined and the GURN is presented as a potential, albeit incremental, innovation. The final stage examines GURN sustainability and the barriers to its institutionalization.

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