Labor Unions

Contact a union organizer!

A union organizer is a staff person of a union who can help you join a union.

Joining a union is a right in every province and state, but the process and laws very from region to region.

Generally, the process involves signing union membership cards until you can show the government there is support for a vote on joining a union.

After the vote, your company will be certified with the union, and will have to bargain in good faith with you and your co-workers.

Here's more information on the process on how a company joins a union.

http://www.join-a-union.com/how-do-i-organize/

World War I had a bad effect on the labor unions. First of all, labor union leaders, who had spoken out against the war were charged under the Espionage Act, tried and imprisoned. Although they had grown prior to World War I, they lost ground afterwards. Accusations of communism levied against labor unions, which were fueled by the Red Scare, cost them over a million members. However, the twenties would see their membership numbers surge again.

Poor plight of labours was the main reason. they were treated as third citizen and their rights were denied.

Labor unions were formed to protect the rights of the individual workers. Alone, one worker could not demand anything, because he coudl easily be fired and not hurt productivity too much to find a replacement. When they banded together they could affect change cause you can't fire them all and still produce a product (make money). So they had to make deals which included decent pay and working conditions. They are not as important anymore because of labor laws protecting the people (in Canada and the United States).

The Knights of Labor was a labor union organized in 1869 by a group of tailors led by Uriah P. Stephens. They were a semi-secret Labor Union because at that time, men who joined Unions or attempted to organize workers were fired from their jobs. The Knights did not put emphasis on politics, like earlier unions, but stressed better working conditions, better pay, and job safety. The Knights welcomed all workers but saloonkeepers, lawyers, and gamblers. They did accept women and African-Americans as members, but not Roman Catholics. The Knights also attracted unskilled workers, a group that had not been unionized prior to the Knights. Terence V. Powderly succeeded Stephens as Union leader and made the Knights more public and acceptable to Catholics. The membership continued to grow. While Powderly did not like strikes, the Knights did win a series of strikes against employers. The beginning of the end of the influence of the Knights of Labor was the 1886 Haymarket Square strike. Membership fell when the Knights were unfairly accused of causing the strike.

Skilled labor organizations, like those for carpenters and printers, were known as unions. They were successful at conducting strikes and raising wages for workers.

The history of labor unions goes back to the guild system in Europe. Members of a guild (a certain profession) tried to protect their guild by controlling who could become a member, a stage of apprenticeship, the cost of the merchandise, and advancement in the guild. A guild was the first attempt of workers organizing according to their own rules rather than the rules of the employer. Guilds were craft unions. Made up of people that made one thing, or did one thing. Trade unions developed in the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US. The trade unions were created to protect the workers and were not exclusive of any particular kind of worker. The first trade union in the US was the National Labor Union, founded in 1866. It failed and was soon replaced by the Knights of Labor, 1869. The Knights of Labor and the more successful American Federation of Labor (AFL), 1886, concentrated on the key issues of child labor opposition, demand for an eight hour day, and protection of the worker from unsafe working conditions and a decent wage. Labor Unions were developed to give the workers a group that could protect their health, jobs, and wages from owners of the factories and businesses that did not take into account the safety and health and necessity of a living wage for their workers. Labor Unions also fought for free, public education in the United States. They provided health and wage insurance. During times of a strike, they help with a strike fund and provide some money to the workers on strike. Unions give the workers a voice.

people, including children, were forced to work in horrible and unsafe conditions for long hours. The National Labor Union started the labor movement with its work on child labor and number of hours to work per day

The American Federation of Labor (AFL, founded 1886) which joined with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, founded in 1935) in 1955 is considered one of the first labor union federations and the AFL-CIO remains the largest federation of unions in the United States, representing over 11 million workers.

The AFL-CIO is the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. It's the largest federation (collective) of labor unions in the US. Originally they were two separate organizations, the AFL and the CIO. They merged forming the AFL-CIO.

Demand for labour in developing countries is increasing since labour is cheaper there due to a large supply. Developed countries are seeing a fall in the demand for labour due to the high price of labour and also face a shortage in supply due to falling birth rates. Its basically along these lines

support to working conditions....

They wanted a decent living wage, fair treatment, job security, and reasonable working hours.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-union-membership-employers-perspective-33242.html

It is known as a workers Union.

Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions' effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections.

Some of the conclusions are:

• Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

• Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.

• Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.

• The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.

• The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.

• Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.

• Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.

• Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).

Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections.

The Pullman Strike began in May 1894 when workers at the Pullman Palace Car factory near Chicago, Illinois walked out. They had attempted to negotiate their decreased wages and the fact that the prices and rents in the Pullman "company town" where they were required to live and shop had remained high, but were ignored. Some of the workers belonged to the American Railway Union (ARU) and asked for its help. When the ARU's attempt to have the dispute arbitrated failed, it announced that its members would no longer work on trains that included Pullman cars.

Within four days, over 125,000 workers had joined the boycott, and 125,000 more in 27 states followed. Railroad traffic nationwide was crippled. Inconvenience, a few acts of vandalism by striking workers, and the huge number of striking workers frightened the public. In early July, the federal government reacted with an injunction basically forbidding all boycott activity. When this had no effect, President Grover Cleveland sent in United States Marshals and about 12,000 U.S. Army troops, justifying this drastic action on the grounds that the strike interfered with the delivery of the U.S. Mail and threatened public safety. 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. The soldiers worked with local authorities and got the trains running again. By mid-July both the boycott and the union were done. ARU president Eugene Victor Debs was arrested and jailed for disobeying the injunction.

Though the American public remained deeply divided on the issue of labor unions for many more years, the Pullman Strike and the way it was resolved probably resulted in more sympathy for unions overall. Though the public wanted the trains running again, many also sympathized with the workers' economic difficulties. A U.S. government commission formed to investigate the strike strongly criticized the company's refusal to arbitrate and called its company town "un-American." President Cleveland knew he had alienated labor and its supporters and attempted to conciliate them by creating a national Labor Day just 6 days after the strike ended. Nevertheless, he lost the Democratic nomination for President in 1896, in large part due to opposition by Illinois Governor Altgeld, who was incensed by Cleveland's having sent in U.S. Army troops. In 1898, the Illinois Supreme Court demanded that the Pullman Company divest itself of its company town and its control over where its employees worked and shopped and how much they paid.

National Labor Union (NLU)

There are many labour unions, you will need to be specific about which one, where and what time frame.

A trade union a formal group since it is recognized by the government and they have set laws and regulations. A trade union fights for the rights of workers.

Social justice -APEX

The Knights of Labor came into public view after the Haymarket Riot. Although this riot was organized by members of the Union, the bomb that exploded during the riot, killing several people, was not their fault. However, the public then associated them with it and they were labelled anarchists. Their decline soon followed.

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During the strikes many Union workers were paid higher wages while the Factory owners got nothing in return