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.

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>

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 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.

British Trade Unions and European Union Integration in the 1990s: Politics versus Political Economy

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Strange
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
British Trade ◽  
Careful Assessment

This article evaluates the changing assessments within the British trade union movement of the efficacy of European Union integration from the viewpoint of labour interests. It argues that there has been a marked further ‘Europeanisation’ of British trade unionism during the 1990s, consolidating an on-going process which previous research shows began in earnest in the mid 1980s. A shift in trade union economic policy assessments has seen the decisive abandonment of the previously dominant ‘naive’ or national Keynesianism. While there remain important differences in economic perspective between unions, these are not such as would create significant divisions over the question of European integration per se, the net benefits of which are now generally, though perhaps not universally, accepted. The absence of fundamental divisions is evident from a careful assessment of the debates about economic and monetary union at TUC Congress. The Europeanisation of British trade unionism needs to be seen within the context of an emergent regionalism, in Europe and elsewhere. It can best be understood as a rational response by an important corporate actor (albeit one whose national influence has been considerably diminished in recent decades) to globalisation and a significantly changing political economy environment.

Growth vs. Economic Democracy in Japan—1945-1965

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-728
Author(s):  
Kozo Yamamura
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Japanese Economy ◽  
Economic Democracy ◽  
World War ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Bona Fide

What has been happening to “Economic Democracy” in Japan within the past twenty years since the end of World War II? Has die emphasis upon rapid economic growth countered the measures intended by the Allied Occupation to ensure economic democracy?The democratic economy the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers envisioned for Japan in the years 1946-1948 was to be free of highly concentrated economic power, either in the hands of Zaibatsu or of giant corporations, was to have an Anti-Monopoly Act to promote “the democratic and wholesome development of the national economy as well as to assure the interest of the general consumer,” and was to have a “just and equal” tax law to “democratize the Japanese economy.” A thorough-going land reform and legal bona fide trade union movement also was declared to be a necessary part of economic democracy. It was, in the words of the Zaibatsu Mission, to build “a strong middle class which can influence the course of policy.”

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.

Civil Strife and the Growth of Trade Union Unity: The Case of Ireland

1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-431
Author(s):  
Charles McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Difficult Time

A MAJOR CLAIM OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN THIS DIFFICULT time in Northern Ireland is that they have ‘prevented the spread of riot and disturbance into the workplace’. The claim has been consistently made and with growing emphasis since the troubles began, and Norman Kennedy at last year's annual conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called it the one beacon of hope, this ‘maintaining unity of the workers, Catholic and Protestant, on the shop floor’ in what he described as largely a conflict of worker against worker, of a working-class community divided along sectarian lines. This is associated with a related claim that trade union recommendations on social and political change have a special legitimacy because the leadership is close to the people who are involved in the conflict. This political role, essentially non-party, is seen to be more significant and extensive than the traditional political activity of the trade union movement.

Palestinian Trade Unions

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Sovich
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement

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.

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