Editing Trade union (section)

==History==
{{Main|Labour movement|Collegium (ancient Rome)|Guild}}

=== Trade guilds ===
A ''collegium'' was any association in ancient Rome that acted as a [[Legal person|legal entity]]. Following the passage of the ''[[Lex Julia]]'' during the reign of Julius Caesar (49–44 BC), and their reaffirmation during the reign of [[Augustus|Caesar Augustus]] (27 BC–14 AD), ''collegia'' required the approval of the [[Roman Senate]] or the Roman emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies.<ref name="de Ligt 2001">{{Cite journal|last=de Ligt|first=L.|date=2001|title=D. 47,22, 1, pr.-1 and the Formation of Semi-Public "Collegia"|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41539517|journal=Latomus|volume=60|issue=2|pages=346–349|jstor=41539517|issn=0023-8856}}</ref> Ruins at [[Lambaesis]] date the formation of burial societies among Roman Army soldiers and [[Roman navy|Roman Navy]] mariners to the reign of [[Septimius Severus]] (193–211) in 198 AD.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ginsburg|first=Michael|year=1940|title=Roman military clubs and their social functions|journal=[[Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association]]|volume=71|pages=149–156|doi=10.2307/283119|jstor=283119}}</ref> In September 2011, archaeological investigations done at the site of the artificial harbor [[Portus]] in Rome revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of [[Trajan]] (98–117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild.<ref>{{cite news|last=Welsh|first=Jennifer|date=September 23, 2011|title=Huge Ancient Roman Shipyard Unearthed in Italy|website=[[Live Science]]|publisher=[[Future plc|Future]]|url=http://www.livescience.com/16201-rome-ancient-shipyard.html|access-date=June 23, 2021}}</ref> Rome's [[Ostia Antica|La Ostia port]] was home to a guildhall for a ''corpus naviculariorum'', a ''collegium'' of merchant mariners.<ref>{{cite book|last=Epstein|first=Steven A.|year=1995|title=Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe|place=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina|Chapel Hill, NC]]|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|pages=10–49|isbn=978-0807844984}}</ref> ''Collegium'' also included fraternities of [[Religion in ancient Rome|Roman priests]] overseeing [[Sacrificium Romanam|ritual sacrifice]]s, practising [[augury]], keeping scriptures, arranging festivals, and maintaining specific religious cults.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lintott|first=Andrew|title=The Constitution of the Roman Republic|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1999|location=Oxford|pages=183–186|isbn=978-0198150688}}</ref>

=== Modern trade unions ===
While a commonly held mistaken view holds modern trade unionism to be a product of [[Marxism]], the earliest modern trade unions predate Marx's ''[[The Communist Manifesto|Communist Manifesto]]'' (1848) by almost a century (and Marx's writings themselves frequently address the prior existence of the workers' movements of his time.) The first recorded labour strike in the [[United States]] was by [[Philadelphia]] printers in 1786, who opposed a wage reduction and demanded $6 per week in wages.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Perlman|first=Selig|title=A History of Trade Unionism in the United States|publisher=MacMillan|year=1922|location=New York|pages=1–3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/social-science/economy/labor/strike/strikes-in-the-united-states |title=Strike: Strikes in the United States |website=infoplease.com |access-date=9 August 2023}}</ref> The origins of modern trade unions can be traced back to 18th-century Britain, where the [[Industrial Revolution]] drew masses of people, including [[dependant|dependents]], peasants and immigrants, into cities. Britain had ended the practice of [[serfdom]] in 1574, but the vast majority of people remained as [[Tenant farmer|tenant-farmers]] on estates owned by the [[landed aristocracy]]. This transition was not merely one of relocation from rural to urban environs; rather, the nature of industrial work created a new class of "worker". A farmer worked the land, raised animals and grew crops, and either owned the land or paid rent, but ultimately sold a ''product'' and had control over his life and work. As industrial workers, however, the workers sold their work as labour and took directions from employers, giving up part of their freedom and self-agency in the service of a master. The critics of the new arrangement would call this "[[wage slavery]]",<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tomich|first=Dale W.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55090137|title=Through the prism of slavery : labor, capital, and world economy|date=2004|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=1417503572|location=Lanham|oclc=55090137}}</ref> but the term that persisted was a new form of human relations: employment. Unlike farmers, workers often had less control over their jobs; without job security or a promise of an on-going relationship with their employers, they lacked some control over the work they performed or how it impacted their health and life. It is in this context that modern trade unions emerge.

In the cities, trade unions encountered much hostility from employers and government groups. In the United States, unions and unionists were regularly prosecuted under various restraint of trade and conspiracy laws, such as the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]].<ref name="Clark 1948">{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=O. L. |date=January 1948 |title=Application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to Unions since the Apex Case |journal=SMU Law Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=94–103 |url=https://scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol2/iss1/6}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Restraint of Trade. Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Liability of Labor Unions |date=1908 |journal=Harvard Law Review |volume=21 |issue=6 |page=450 |doi=10.2307/1325438|jstor=1325438 }}</ref> This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labour spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout its beginnings,{{sfn|Webb|Webb|1920}} and would later be an important arena for the development of trade unions. Trade unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the [[guild]]s of [[medieval Europe]], though the relationship between the two is disputed, as the masters of the guilds employed workers (apprentices and journeymen) who were not allowed to organize.<ref>{{cite news |date=3 March 1928 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19280303&id=rN9VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AdgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7279,410871 |title=The Guild and the Trade Union |author=C. M. N. |work=The Age |page=25 |via=Google News Archive}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Kautsky|first=Karl|date=April 1901|title=Trades Unions and Socialism|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1901/04/unions.htm|journal=International Socialist Review|volume=1|issue=10|access-date=27 July 2011}}</ref>

Trade unions and collective bargaining were outlawed from no later than the middle of the 14th century, when the [[Ordinance of Labourers]] was enacted in the [[Kingdom of England]], but their way of thinking was the one that endured down the centuries, inspiring evolutions and advances in thinking which eventually gave workers more power. As collective bargaining and early worker unions grew with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the government began to clamp down on what it saw as the danger of popular unrest at the time of the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. In 1799, the ''[[Combination Act]]'' was passed, which banned trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Although the unions were subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in cities such as [[London]]. Workplace militancy had also manifested itself as [[Luddism]] and had been prominent in struggles such as the [[1820 Rising]] in Scotland, in which 60,000 workers went on a [[general strike]], which was soon crushed. Sympathy for the plight of the workers brought repeal of the acts in 1824, although the [[Combination Act 1825]] restricted their activity to bargaining for wage increases and changes in working hours.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Frank|first=Christopher|date=January 2005|title="Let But One of Them Come before Me, and I'll Commit Him": Trade Unions, Magistrates, and the Law in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Staffordshire|journal=Journal of British Studies|volume=44|issue=1|pages=76–77|jstor=10.1086/426157|doi=10.1086/426157}}</ref>

By the 1810s, the first labour organizations to bring together workers of divergent occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, founded in 1818 in [[Manchester]]. The latter name was to hide the organization's real purpose in a time when trade unions were still illegal.{{Sfn|Cole|2010|p=3}}

===National general unions===
[[File:London Trades Demonstration.jpg|thumb|upright|Poster issued by the London Trades Council, advertising a demonstration held on 2 June 1873]]
The first attempts at forming a national [[general union]] in the United Kingdom were made in the 1820s and 30s. The [[National Association for the Protection of Labour]] was established in 1830 by [[John Doherty (trade unionist)|John Doherty]], after an apparently unsuccessful attempt to create a similar national presence with the National Union of Cotton-spinners. The Association quickly enrolled approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of [[Textile and clothing trade unions|textile related unions]], but also including mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others. Membership rose to between 10,000 and 20,000 individuals spread across the five counties of [[Lancashire]], [[Cheshire]], [[Derbyshire]], [[Nottinghamshire]] and [[Leicestershire]] within a year.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Webb | first1 = Sidney | author-link = Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield |last2= Webb | first2= Beatrice | year = 1894| title = [[History of Trade Unionism]] | publisher = Longmans Green and Co | location = London| pages = [https://archive.org/details/historyoftradeun00webb/page/120 120–124]}}</ref> To establish awareness and legitimacy, the union started the weekly ''[[Voice of the People (newspaper)|Voice of the People]]'' publication, having the declared intention "to unite the productive classes of the community in one common bond of union."{{sfn|Webb|Webb|1894|p=122}}

In 1834, the Welsh socialist [[Robert Owen]] established the [[Grand National Consolidated Trades Union]]. The organization attracted a range of [[socialists]] from Owenites to revolutionaries and played a part in the protests after the [[Tolpuddle Martyrs]]' case, but soon collapsed.

More permanent trade unions were established from the 1850s, better resourced but often less radical. The [[London Trades Council]] was founded in 1860, and the [[Sheffield Outrages]] spurred the establishment of the [[Trades Union Congress]] in 1868, the first long-lived [[national trade union center]]. By this time, the existence and the demands of the trade unions were becoming accepted by [[liberalism|liberal]] middle-class opinion. In ''[[Principles of Political Economy]]'' (1871) [[John Stuart Mill]] wrote:

<blockquote>If it were possible for the working classes, by combining among themselves, to raise or keep up the general rate of wages, it needs hardly be said that this would be a thing not to be punished, but to be welcomed and rejoiced at. Unfortunately the effect is quite beyond attainment by such means. The multitudes who compose the working class are too numerous and too widely scattered to combine at all, much more to combine effectually. If they could do so, they might doubtless succeed in diminishing the hours of labour, and obtaining the same wages for less work. They would also have a limited power of obtaining, by combination, an increase of general wages at the expense of profits.<ref>''[[Principles of Political Economy]]'' (1871)[http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/book5/bk5ch10 Book V, Ch.10] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141106033951/http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/book5/bk5ch10 |date=6 November 2014 }}, para. 5</ref></blockquote>Beyond this claim, Mill also argued that, because individual workers had no basis for assessing the wages for a particular task, labour unions would lead to greater efficiency of the market system.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=King|first1=John T.|last2=Yanochik|first2=Mark A.|title=John Stuart Mill and the Economic Rationale for Organized Labor|date=2011|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23240389|journal=The American Economist|volume=56|issue=2|pages=28–34|doi=10.1177/056943451105600205|jstor=23240389|s2cid=157935634|issn=0569-4345}}</ref>

===Legalization, expansion and recognition===
[[File:1912 Lawrence Textile Strike 1.jpg|thumb|Trade union demonstrators held at bay by soldiers during the 1912 [[Lawrence textile strike]] in [[Lawrence, Massachusetts]]]]
[[British Empire|British]] trade unions were finally legalized in 1872, after a ''[[Royal Commission on Trade Unions]]'' in 1867 agreed that the establishment of the organizations was to the advantage of both employers and employees.

This period also saw the growth of trade unions in other industrializing countries, especially the United States, Germany and France.

In the United States, the first effective nationwide labour organization was the [[Knights of Labor]], in 1869, which began to grow after 1880. Legalization occurred slowly as a result of a series of court decisions.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357701/trade-union|title=Trade union|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=13 March 2024 }}</ref> The [[Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions]] began in 1881 as a federation of different unions that did not directly enrol workers. In 1886, it became known as the [[American Federation of Labor]] or AFL.

In Germany, the [[Free Association of German Trade Unions]] was formed in 1897 after the [[conservativism|conservative]] [[Anti-Socialist Laws]] of Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]] were repealed.

In France, labour organisation was illegal until the [[1884 Waldeck Rousseau laws]]. The [[Fédération des bourses du travail]] was founded in 1887 and merged with the Fédération nationale des syndicats (National Federation of Trade Unions) in 1895 to form the [[General Confederation of Labour (France)|General Confederation of Labour]].

In a number of countries during the 20th century, including in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, legislation was passed to provide for the voluntary or statutory recognition of a union by an employer.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Townshend-Smith | first = R | date = 1981 | title = Trade union recognition legislation – Britain and America compared | journal = Legal Studies | volume = 1 | issue = 2 | pages = 190–212 | doi = 10.1111/j.1748-121X.1981.tb00120.x| s2cid = 145725063 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Briggs | first = C. | date = 2007 | title = Statutory Union Recognition in North America and the UK: Lessons for Australia? | journal = The Economic and Labour Relations Review | volume = 17 | issue = 2 |pages = 77–97 | doi = 10.1177/103530460701700205 | s2cid = 153980466 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Goodard | first = J. | date = 2013 | title = Labour Law and Union Recognition in Canada: A Historical-Institutionalist Perspective | journal = Queen's Law Journal | volume = 38 | issue = 2| pages = 391–417}}</ref>